Children of Mandalore: Red Fang
by The-Real-Mando-Man
Summary: This story is set ten years after my fic Prelude to terror. Set during the LOTF. Tyran Numeck must rescue his brother and his team of mercenaries from Darth Caedus and a foe from his past. In order to do this he must track down the elusive being known as RED-FANG.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story is not the direct sequel to Prelude to Terror, but actually the third installment of the Children of Mandalore Series. **_**CoM: Dark Terror**_** has a lot of working parts that I need to fine tune, and the plot needs some work as well, maybe even a co-author (Anyone who's good at writing big space battles drop me a line). This story however is a rewrite of my first fic **_**Children of Mandalore: Honorable Discharge.**_** I lost the original after my computer crashed, and at the time I was a new author and didn't think to back it up. I figured it would be safe on the boards...All of us fic writers know how that turned out :P. So I took the opportunity to rework the plot and make it a little more detailed and less rushed than the original. This story will be an attempt at a Tom Clancy style of storytelling, sorry if I fall short on that though, I'm a better writer than was but I'm far from the best lol. Enough of me blabbering on, I hereby present:**

**Children of Mandalore: RED FANG**

**[Dramatis personae]**

Ami Laylis: Mandalorian bounty hunter (female human)

Aru Numeck: Wife of Tyran Numeck; former Mandalorian Supercommando (female human)

Baydo Titus: Mandalorian mercenary (male human)

Dain Dolvo: Mandalorian mercenary (male human)

Dyir Carud: Mandalorian mercenary (male human)

Elai Kareb: Mandalorian mercenary (male human)

Gazra Ryl: Intelligence operative (male Rauften)

Ijaat Numeck: Son of Tyran and Aru Numeck (male human)

Iman Vitrix: Colonel; Galactic Alliance Special Forces operative (male Zabrak)

Jacen Solo/Darth Caedus: Head of the Galactic Alliance Guard; Jedi Knight/Sith Lord (male human)

Jaiden Numeck: Adopted son of Tyran Numeck (male human)

Jaya Numeck: Mandalorian mercenary; wife of Rixa Numeck (female human)

Kial Volar: Mandalorian mercenary (male human)

Lin Diieve: Mandalorian bounty hunter; wife of Ryia Devieyc (female human)

Luric Braren: Red Fang (male human)

Neada Tash: Director of Orbital Ring Security KDY; ex-Hapan Commando (female human)

Niya Dinn: Mandalorian bounty hunter (female human)

Odas Zistra: Politician, Chairman of the Galactic Alliance Clandestine Operations Advisory Council (male Gran)

Rev Devieyc: Mandalorian mercenary (male human)

Rixa Numeck: Mandalorian mercenary (male human)

Runi Numeck: Patriarch of the Numeck Clan (male human)

Ryia Devieyc: Mandalorian mercenary (male human)

Savah Tervho: Mandalorian mercenary (female human)

Truan Stav: Head of the Kuati Security Council (male human)

Tyran Numeck: Former Mandalorian Supercommando (male human)

Vyndra Tash: daughter of Neada Tash (female human)

**CHAPTER ONE**

**Skyview Walkway, Coruscant, 40 ABY**

**Three days after the attack on Toryaz Station**

Rixa Numeck didn't find the spectacle of massive canyons and speeder lanes weaving below and above him the least bit impressive as he stood on the walkway waiting. The Skyview was in the upper reaches of Coruscant's speeder lanes and bridged the gap between two of the most luxurious hotels on the planet. Rixa was just a soldier and places like those didn't fit his taste but he often found himself spending a lot of time in those types of places. He was always being hired by the affluent and elite citizens of the galaxy to do dirty work that ensured they were able to keep their positions of power and wealth.

Though most of his employers had deep pockets, Rixa and his family were barely getting by with scraping out an existence on his family's farm on Mandalore. No matter how much he made from his clients payments there was always something that would come up and suck out any excess profits. Rixa couldn't actually remember how long it had been since he had actually seen his wife in person, Jaya was working the bounty hunter circuit as well trying to maximize their profits by taking jobs of her own.

At this point it had to be close to seven or eight standard months since he had set out on his next tour of jobs around the usual spots in the Outer Rim. It wasn't unusual for him to wind up on Coruscant, but he hadn't ever been to this particular level of the city planet. Whoever he was going to be meeting with here was of a whole new kind of affluence than he had ever encountered before.

_Good, maybe I can charge him more if the job is difficult enough._ He thought as he stared down at the checkerboard pattern of speeder lanes below him. _It'll probably turn out to be another intimidation job for a politician._

Those kind of jobs seemed to be his bread and butter these days. Rixa silently longed for a war like the one with the Yuuzhan Vong so he could do some honest soldiering again. Rixa slowly reached his hand up to his shoulder and ran his hand over the section of armor plating as memories of being wounded and tortured by a Yuuzhan Vong high commander on some backwater moon came back to him.

_Maybe not exactly like the Yuuzhan Vong._

His helmet sensor detected someone approaching from behind him so he opened a small video feed in his HUD. A Zabrak in a crisp military uniform was indeed walking towards him. Rixa armed the dart launcher in his wrist gauntlet for good measure before turning around to face the approaching person.

"Rixa Numeck?" the pale skinned Zabrak asked as he stood within arms length of the Mandalorian.

Rixa decided that the Zabrak was either very confident or very stupid to be standing so close to an armed mercenary he knew very little about.

"Depends on who's asking." His helmet filter made his voice all the more intimidating. "Who's asking?"

"Colonel Iman Vitrix, Galactic Alliance Special Deployment Group. I've got a proposition for you, can we discuss it inside over lunch?" The Zabrak gestured to the massive spacescraper to the left of the Walkway.

Skyview Terrace was one of the premiere hotels in the galaxy, as well as on Coruscant and it catered to only the absurdly rich.

"Is the Alliance going to foot the bill?"

The Zabrak chuckled. "Of course, even if we don't come to an agreement over the mission."

Rixa began walking off towards the Terrace and made sure to set his helmet to alert him if anyone appeared to be following him. Vitrix fell in step beside him.

"You were highly recommended by some colleagues of mine, as was your brother. We couldn't find him, or else we would have set up a meeting with both of you to double our chances of success." Vitrix said casually.

"He wouldn't have done it anyway, he gave up the mercenary life after the war with the Yuuzhan Vong ended." Rixa said sourly "I haven't seen him for at least ten years."

"Hmm, what a shame." the Zabrak said as the doors to the Terrace parted for them. They were met by a well dressed Bith who directed them to a small table in the far corner of the room that had a breath taking view of Coruscant's skyline.

Vitrix ordered a nerf steak and some expensive Hapen Reserve. Rixa wondered how someone in the Galactic Alliance military could afford to eat in a place like this. HhHe decided that the Zabrak's personal wealth wasn't his concern.

"What kind of job does the Galactic Alliance military need me to do for them?" Rixa asked as he removed his helmet and set it on the table next to him.

"You don't want to wait until after we eat to discuss business?" Vitrix asked as the Bith returned with the bottle of Hapan wine and poured a glass for the Zabrak. The Bith turned the bottle of wine to Rixa and indicated his glass. Rixa declined the drink, alcohol and business didn't tend to mix very well. He would celebrate after the job was done and his bank account had a little bit of padding in it.

"I didn't come all this way for an overpriced nerf steak." Rixa said. "So what do you want?"

Vitrix stared at the Mandalorian mercenary for a few long seconds. He nodded a few times and reached into his shirt. Rixa visibly tightened his grip on the knife in his hand, it was natural reflex when someone he didn't know began reaching for things he couldn't see. Vitrix laughed and slowly pulled his hand out of his jacket and revealed a datachip.

"Forgive me, I forgot about the Mandalorian knack for suspicion."

"It's kept me alive this long." Rixa said as he eyed the chip while Vitrix slid it across the table. "What's on the chip?"

"Information." Vitrix replied coolly. "Actually all of the information we have on the target we would like you to eliminate."

Rixa took the chip and slid it into a throwaway datapad. He did have a chip reader in his armor system but he wasn't about to insert a chip from an unknown military officer into his personal armor system. It took a few moments for the chip to read in his datapad before the screen began to display the information stored on the small device.

"You're joking right?" Rixa said. "This is all you have: Target Identity, Red-Fang. Last known location, the Outer-Rim. You expect to me to find someone with only this to go on?"

Vitrix raised his hands. "Forgive me, I thought Mandalorians could track anyone anywhere across the galaxy with the barest of information. Are you turning down the job?"

Rixa considered the datapad for a few moments. He couldn't afford to let a contract with the Galactic Alliance slip through his fingers. The information he had been given however wasn't going to help him or any other Mandalorian in tracking down the person known as Red-Fang.

"Give me forty-eight hours, let me see what I can dig up on this Red-Fang." Rixa said after a moment of thinking over his options. "If I can come up with more information to make the job more feasible I'll do it."

"Forty-eight hours is acceptable." Vitrix said instantly.

"Who is Red-Fang, or more importantly why do you want him taken care of?"

"He's a terrorist, plain and simple. We can't find him and our resources are being redistributed due to the recent troubles with Corellia."

"So you're just outsourcing your wetwork then."

"Precisely. How much do you require to do that?"

"That'll depend on what I can find out." Rixa said. "After I finish digging around we can discuss payment."

Vitrix nodded his head. "Fine. You have forty-eight hours, I look forward to getting your call."

Taking the comment as a sign that the meeting was over Rixa stood up from the table and replaced his helmet and turned towards the door without saying another word. Vitrix waited until the Mandalorian was outside the building before reaching into his pocket and pulling out an earpiece to a comlink and placing it in his right ear. The device beeped twice before someone on the other end answered his call.

"I made contact with a mercenary who comes highly recommended." He said as the Bith waiter returned with his nerf steak.

"Good, what did he say?" the disembodied voice in his ear asked.

"He asked if he could have forty-eight hours to dig around and find some more information before he accepted the job. I told him that was doable."

"Are you insane?!" the voice cried out. "What if he finds out more about Red-Fang than he needs to know?"

"I took care of all the Operation: Red-Fang data personally. He wont find anything I don't want him seeing." Vitrix said as he cut into his steak. The knife passed through the meat as if it was warm butter. "All that we need now is for this mercenary to locate Red-Fang himself and eliminate him. After that Senator you can go back to worrying about your constituents instead of worrying about being assassinated."

"But what if he _does_ find out something he isn't supposed to?"

"Then we will have him dealt with and hire some one who is less resourceful to do the job instead." Vitrix was growing tired of having to deal with politicians and couldn't wait to have this partnership wrapped up. "I have this under control, you just keep the funding for the other operations flowing and leave Red-Fang to me."

The call ended at the opposite end and Vitrix sipped at his expensive Hapan wine and ate his perfectly prepared steak without a shred of concern about the man known as Red-Fang simply because Rixa Numeck was everything his contacts had said he would be. One standard week. That was what he felt it would take for the Mandalorian to track down his target and put an end to a nightmare that had seemed like it was going to last forever.

**SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT, OFFICE OF ODAS ZISTRA, 40 ABY**

**THREE DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Odas Zistra slammed his datapad back down on his desk and growled in frustration. Iman Vitrix was an impossible man to work with, he seemed to operate on faith rather than hard facts. The aging Gran hadn't managed to stay in politics for as long as he had by dealing in faith and luck. He had made deals, followed up on proven facts and even intimidated his way to his current position of power as the head of the Clandestine Operations Advisory Council. There wasn't a special operation in all of the Galactic Alliance that got the green light without his say so. Red-Fang had been one such operation, Vitrix's own brain child. It was one of a few 'off-the-books' missions that had been brought before the COAC.

Red-Fang had been an intriguing operation from the start on Zistra's part. The mission was deemed so secret by the military that only two other members of the ten-member council had been briefed on the operation. Which wasn't such an odd occurrence, often certain operations were brought to COAC members who were thought to be more supportive of the planned outcome of a certain operation. But still though the amount of secrecy that had swirled around Red-Fang had seemed rather excessive to Zistra at the time.

The mission had been given the go ahead after a five hour briefing by Vitrix and select other military officials and Zistra had thought that would have been the end of his involvement as was usually the case. Then Vitrix began making regular visits to his office and personally handing over updates on the operation's success. Vitrix then began to slowly plant subtle hints that they could use Red-Fang to further their own needs, which was double-speak for lining their pockets with extra credits. Zistra hadn't jumped on the idea as quickly as his two other fellow COAC members involved with the Red-Fang operation, but once Vitrix showed him how many credits were being pulled in off the books by his two fellow Senators it was an easy decision to climb on board the now legal/illegal black-operation.

Everything ran smoothly for a few years and Zistra had collected a small personal fortune that was gathering interest in a bank on Muunilist registered under an alias. He'd had everything he'd need for the rest of his life and he could have walked away without any fears. Then Red-Fang went wrong. Vitrix had lost contact with the operative who had been using the codename matching the operation designation during the war with the Yuuzhan Vong. The mission was abandoned and Zistra, his two fellow COAC members and Colonel Vitrix went their separate ways.

Now barely a month ago, almost ten years after the mission had been scrapped, both of the other Senators who had signed off on Red-Fang had died a few days apart. Each death had been explained away by either an accident or natural causes.

But Zistra knew better. It didn't take a lot of brains to figure out what was happening. For one reason or another Red-Fang was back and he was going after everyone who had been involved with the operation in one form or another. Simple, unsuspecting aids who had done nothing more than run files from Vitrix to Zistra were popping up dead across the galaxy now and again. Each death was explained away without suspicion.

It was all too coincidental for his liking.

He had moved into his office, forgoing the lavish comforts of his expensive residence in the upper levels of Coruscant for the marginally comfortable but extremely secure confines of the Senate Building. He still had business to conduct as the head of the Clandestine Operations Advisory Council. The problems with Corellia had thrown an influx of operation proposals his way and he couldn't let a demon from his past interfere with the affairs of the Galactic Alliance.

As much as he disliked the idea he had to have faith that Vitrix and his mercenary would get the job done.

The door to his office buzzed and Zistra checked the security cam feed on the built-in monitor of his desk. His assistant, a blue skinned female Twi'lek, was standing in the hallway with a stack of datapads in her hands. Zistra hit one of the buttons under his desk and disengaged the lock on his office door. A moment later his assistant walked into his room, her hips swaying with the ease and grace of a former dancer.

"This morning's batch of proposals Senator." She said giving him a very toothy grin as she set the stack down on his desk.

He gave her a dismissive wave as he grabbed the first datapad from the top of the stack. "Thank you Zuda, would you mind bringing me a cup of caf. I think today is going to be one of those long days."

The Twi'lek bowed her head slightly and disappeared out of the door again. Zistra skimmed through the first few lines of text on the datapad. The proposal was for an extremely off-the-books prison used to hold and interrogate suspected terrorists for more information. The proposal even laid out a specific planet in the far reaches of the Outer-Rim where the prison could be built.

"Kaytares VII." Zistra said to himself as he pulled up information on the planet. It was a barren snow covered world on the extreme edge of the Outer-Rim with virtually no indigenous species. "Promising, very promising."

Zistra finished skimming through the datapad and noted the name of the person presenting the proposal to the COAC later in the afternoon and then moved on to the next datapad in the stack. As he had thought he was now positive that the day was going to be long and uninteresting. That was how he preferred it.

**CORUSCANT SPACEPORT, 40 ABY**

**FOUR DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Rixa was sitting in the cockpit of the battered X-Wing that his wife had flown during the Yuuzhan Vong war. The black and blue paint scheme was chipped and the Mythosaur on the nose of the craft was faded and burned by countless atmospheric re-entries over the last decade. He was proud of his piloting skills but he still didn't feel right sitting in the starfighter as he flipped the datachip between his thumb and index finger over and over while he contemplated yesterday's morning events.

The Galactic Alliance military was outsourcing it's wetwork because they were overstretched in dealing with Corellia but they had virtually no intelligence on the man, or woman, they wanted dead. Galactic Alliance Intelligence was very good at it's job and if they wanted to find out about someone then there was virtually no way to escape them. So the fact that he had been provided with only an alias and an unhelpful last known location, literally listed as: the Outer Rim, set off every alarm in Rixa's head.

He had forty-eight hours to come up with added information on his own before the Alliance took their potentially lucrative contract to the next bidder. So far he had used up twenty-one hours of his forty-eight hour time frame in his research of the potential target. He had exhausted every intelligence source he had at his disposal, countless smugglers, spice-runners and even other mercenaries had all come up with zero on the person known as Red-Fang. This was a first for him, never before had he ever come across someone he couldn't find any information on. He didn't even have a confirmed planet where he could start an old-fashion foot track for the target. It angered him and made him want to accept the contract, even with the limited information he had, just so he could prove to himself he could find someone who couldn't be found.

But that was reckless. You never took a job unless you knew everything about your target. Their habits, acquaintances, place of business, establishments the target frequented, whether or not they had military training and what kind of military training that was. All of that information went into the making of an assassination to make it successful and he had none of it.

He leaned his head back against the seat in the cramped cockpit and sighed in frustration. There was still one contact he could use to possibly find some information on Red-Fang, but he was resistant to the idea of calling the contact even though it might mean the difference between the people on his farm eating well for the next few months or not eating much at all. He scratched at his chin while he thought about what move to make. Ultimately the responsibility of providing for the inhabitants of the Numeck Homestead outweighed his own personal pride. He set the portable holo-communicator on top of the X-Wing's readout panel and linked his personal commlink with the device.

He tapped in a comm code and waited for the line to pick up. He didn't have to wait long. A few seconds later he was staring at the face of his wife. Her long dark hair was fixed in two tight braids that ran down the back of her head and she was sporting a rather nasty black-eye, but she smiled at him. Despite the bruise Rixa found himself beaming back at her, it had been a very long time since he had seen her face.

"_Rix'ika_!" she exclaimed. "_Ni_ _briikase bah susulur teh gar_!" _I'm happy to hear from you._

"_Cyar'ika,_" He tapped his face just under his eye. "_Tion'meg ti te net'ra sur'haai_?" _Sweetheart, what's with the black eye?_

"Oh, just business with a local lowlife." Jaya Numeck's tone was dismissive. "_Wer'cuy._" _Forget it._

Injuries happened in their line of work, especially black-eyes, but it bothered Rixa at a primal level that someone had hurt his wife. "Where's local?"

"Nar Shadda."

"Did you get even?"

"More than even," Jaya smiled broadly. "He had some debts to pay off with the Black Sun, sold them a batch of bad blaster rifles."

"I don't imagine that went over so well."

"No not really, I got five-thousand credits for apprehending him though."

"That'll tide us over for a few weeks." Rixa sighed heavily.

"You didn't call just to talk did you?" Jaya asked.

Rixa looked at the flickering blue image as he worked himself up for what he was about to do. "You still talk with your sister?"

"Yes." Jaya's tone was curious. "Not often but we keep in touch."

"I need her comm code."

"Why?"

"I need to get in touch with my brother."

"Are you in trouble?" Her voice went from being tinged with curiosity to being overcome with concern.

"No, not yet at least." Rixa laughed. "I just need some intel on a target. I can't find anything about him, or even if it is a him."

"What do you mean by nothing?"

"Nothing. Zip, zero, zilch. It's as if the target never existed."

"Who offered the job?"

"The Galactic Alliance."

"And they gave you nothing on the target?"

"Just an alias and the fact he or she was last seen in the Outer-Rim."

Jaya laughed incredulously "And you accepted the contract?"

"No, not yet. I asked for forty-eight hours to dig around a little, I've got twenty-seven hours left and haven't gotten any closer to figuring out who this Red-Fang is."

"You think Tyran will help you?"

"I can only ask and see what he says. The worst he can do is tell me he can't help."

"Alright, I'll transmit Aru's comm code to your datapad. I'm heading back to Mandalore tomorrow so don't take too long with your government contract."

"Well that depends on if I even accept it." Rixa said tiredly. "I'll be home as soon as I can."

"_K'oyacyi_." _Come back safely_. Jaya smiled at him once more and her image disappeared from the holo-projector.

Rixa removed the projector from on top of the readout panel and pocketed the device. He sighed again and rubbed his eyes which had become suddenly heavy. His datapad began beeping and he opened it to find the message from Jaya with her older sister's comm code. He activated the commlink again and entered the code into the device and found himself waiting for another voice he hadn't heard in nearly a decade to answer his call.

**KDY OFFICE OF DOMESTIC SECURITY HEADQUARTERS, KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**FOUR DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Neada Tash had taken some time to get used to the amount of power her position as Director of Domestic Security for Kuat Drive Yards gave her. For the longest time she had been used to the simple existence of a being a soldier in the Hapan Military, having to work for everything she wanted. Now all she had to do was snap her fingers and her every need would be fulfilled. She didn't like how she was doted upon by the people who were deemed to be her lessers, she didn't view herself as above anyone else or below anyone else, she didn't like having things simply handed to her. If she hadn't earned it then she didn't want it. She had been the same way during her days as a Hapan Commando working her way up the ranks, and it might have contributed to her downfall and ultimate exile from Hapes.

Her hard work ethic and meteoric rise within the Hapan special forces had deemed her as a potential threat to a high ranking officer within the unit, and true to the Hapan norm a plot to have her removed was put in place. The regimental leader was found murdered in her bunk and evidence had been found linking Neada to the scene. All of it planted. Neada had used her training to escape the squad sent to arrest her and had managed to make it off world. Black listed by the Hapans, she had no where to go within the Consortium and quickly found herself working as a bounty hunter.

That was where she had met Truan Stav, a then hot-shot politician in the local Kuati Government. He took note of her abilities and did some digging and discovered the false murder charge levied against her by the Hapan Military. He knew it was false and offered Neada a job as the head of a new agency he was forming. She had asked for some time to think it over and he agreed to give her a few days to mull it over. Then the Yuuzhan Vong arrived in the Galaxy and ruined everything.

She had just managed to ride out the war, and also fall in love with a fellow bounty-hunter and mercenary along the way. But out of the two of them, only she survived the war and later found out she was pregnant. So with the conquering of Kuat by the Yuuzhan Vong, Neada had been left without a job, had become widowed and a single mother.

But once again fate intervened.

On one of the evacuation ships Neada encountered Truan Stav once again. He took her under his wing and became a fatherly figure to her. Once the Yuuzhan Vong war was over and the galaxy put itself back together Neada began working directly for Stav. With her help the savvy politician and former military man began to put together what would becoming the first incarnation of the Office of Domestic Security. Neada gave birth to a healthy baby girl named Vyndra and not soon after the first of a series of assassination attempts on Neada's life took place.

It was avoided and the would-be assassins all killed in the attempt. It was after the third attempt on her life occurred that Stav had decided that she would need some high-quality bodyguards to fight off the constant attempts by her former Hapan commanders to have her killed. The first few people Stav brought on as her bodyguards were good at their jobs when it came to keeping her safe but they weren't very professional in their off hours. Neada didn't want her and her daughter to be protected by unintelligent brutes. She wanted soldiers, men and women who were just as efficient at their jobs as she was as well as being able to hold a conversation with her.

The final three operatives Stav had settled upon had fit that description perfectly. Two of them were a husband/wife team and they even had a child a few months older than Vyndra, the third man was a friend of theirs who they had highly recommended. For nearly a decade Neada Tash had been under the safe umbrella of protection provided by Dyir Carud and Tyran Numeck while her daughter Vyndra and Tyran's son Ijaat were under the watchful eyes of Tyran's wife Aru Numeck.

Tyran and Dyir were both quick minded and had a finely tuned sense of self-preservation that had served Neada well over the last ten years. They operated with a level of expertise she admired and skill she was actually kind of envious of. Stav had insisted on having more than just a two man security detail, but after witnessing both men eliminate a six-man Hapan assassination team he had changed his tune.

All three of them were being paid handsomely for their services. They were making twenty-nine hundred credits a week when they had first started but with every assassination they thwarted they were paid an extra ten-hundred credits. So after warding of twelve or so attempts in the last decade they were close to netting two-hundred thousand credits a year. A nice hefty sum for people who weren't even in their forties yet.

Dyir was the youngest of the three at thirty years of age, Aru came in second at thirty-one years of age and Tyran rounded out the group at thirty-two. Neada often found herself wondering what kept them from retiring, especially Tyran and Aru since they had a ten-year old boy to look after. They certainly had enough money to fall back on with each of them pulling in two-hundred thousand credits a year. There was no doubt that Ijaat was going to be well cared for for the rest of his life.

She understood Dyir a little better though. He didn't have a family outside of the three Numecks, no wife or child of his own, not even a girlfriend that she was aware of. It seemed that all he really had was his work, it was something she shared with him outside of Vyndra. What she didn't understand about Dyir was why he didn't have a girlfriend or a wife yet. He was tall with close shaved blonde hair and vividly green eyes. His face was ringed with laugh lines despite his dangerous and unpredictable profession. He was a man who took a lot of pride in his physical appearance and always kept himself in the very best shape and he was always in a good mood.

Dyir Carud would have been a real prize on Hapes, a lot of people would have killed to have the opportunity to breed with him. Tyran however would have been the bigger prize. He was every bit as handsome as Dyir and took an even greater pride in his physical appearance, he spent as much time in the gym as he did protecting her. His dark hair and icy-blue eyes combined with a stare that was ten-percent analytical and eighty-percent intimidation that gave pause to the most dangerous of criminals. It was how he moved that really caught Neada's attention, the way he carried himself simply oozed authority. He had clearly taken to the power his position gave him a lot more easily than Neada had taken to hers.

He and Dyir both wore sharp black business suits that seemed to make them look even more threatening. Everyone knew who they were but no one knew their names, both men only answered to Neada but everyone else answered to them. It was an unspoken rule in the Office of Domestic Security headquarters: Those two men who escorted Director Tash were to be obeyed at all times, especially so in an emergency situation. She suspected that both Dyir and Tyran privately enjoyed their myth-like presence amongst the analysts and operatives who worked for her.

The Office of Domestic Security was simply an organization that worked to prevent anything from harming the KDY shipyards orbiting the planet. While the Galactic Alliance fleet prevented any external threats from getting to the Orbital Rings, Neada and her network of spies, analysts and highly trained Threat Reduction Units worked at a tireless pace to prevent any homegrown attacks.

Again Tyran, Dyir and Aru became indispensable assets in this regard. The former Mandalorian Supercommandos offered advice on how to plan certain raids and every now and then took part in training exercises with the TRU teams. Those were the men and women who seemed to have the respect of the three Mandalorians, Team-Sigma was at the top of that respect list though.

Team-Sigma was often the go to team that Tyran used when he felt more than just a two-man team was needed. It was comprised of six operators, two from the Kuati Commando Group and four more from the Galactic Marines. They were led by a lieutenant named Kovi Lasar, he had spent seven years as a member of the Coruscant Security Force and then had joined the Kuati Commando Group after relocating back to his homeworld after the Yuuzhan Vong war. Neada had a great trust for all of the TRU teams that she commanded, but she favored Sigma mostly because Tyran trusted them more than the other teams.

She continued down the hallway with Tyran moving in front of her, clearing the way with his intimidating size and gaze while Dyir followed closely behind her. He wasn't so close that he was stepping on her heels, but close enough that he could grab her and throw her out of harms way if he had to. Neada kept reading the reports piling in from Kuat's intelligence service regarding the incident on Toryaz Station. She felt a big wave of relief that she hadn't been assigned to provide security for that situation. Guarding shipyards from terrorists was one thing, but protecting a meeting between two heads of state who have no shortage of enemies was another beast entirely.

At first she had thought it had been one of the Moff Council trying to off Gilad Pellaeon, but none of the Moff's had the backbone, or the brains for that matter, to pull one over on the legendary Imperial Admiral. Then Thrackan Sal-Solo had emerged as the new Corellian Head of State after the previous head of state had been killed in the attack. She knew enough about Sal-Solo to know that he was brazen enough and resourceful enough to pull off that kind of operation. He was just as power hungry as any other politician she had ever met. Except Truan Stav. He had never had anything but the interests of Kuat in mind.

The three of them turned the corner and made it into her office. She took her seat behind her large desk, made from highly polished worshyr tree bark imported from Kashyyyk. Dyir sunk down into one of the large bantha leather chairs that littered the room while Tyran leaned against the wall at the back of the room.

"You do know you can relax right?" Dyir asked him. "We've made this room as secure as the one Cal Omas uses."

"There's relaxing and then there's getting complacent." Tyran said. "You know as well as I do that if someone wants to get in here bad enough then they'll find a way to do it."

"Well that's reassuring." Neada grinned up at her two bodyguards. "But I guess that's why we pay you to keep me reassured."

Dyir and Tyran laughed.

"We do our best ma'am."

"Tyran you know I don't like being called ma'am." Neada shook her head as she leaned back in her chair. "Call me Neada."

"I thought you wanted us to be professional?"

"There's being professional and then there is being an uptight and uninteresting slab of meat." Neada gestured at Dyir. "He's told me about a few of your more harrowing adventures together and I've seen you in action so I know you aren't even remotely uninteresting."

Tyran turned his head towards Dyir. "What did you tell her about?"

Dyir grinned broadly at his friend. "That time you fell into a Rancor pit."

"The time _I_ fell into the Rancor pit!?" Tyran exclaimed. "You've taken one too many hits to the head if that's how you remember it."

"Clarify it for me then." Neada said leaning over her desk and meshing her hands together and resting her chin on them. "What really happened?"

"Fine." Tyran sat down opposite Dyir who suddenly looked liked he wasn't looking forward to the story Tyran was going tell. The buzzer on Neada's desk came to life and she held a finger up to Tyran. Dyir sighed slightly as he got a moment of respite from what she was sure was a humiliating story.

"Director Tash." She said.

"Ma'am, Spitfire is on her way up." the guard at the main entrance said.

"Thank you." Neada replied and turned to Tyran. "Your story is going to have to wait sadly." Spitfire was the codename the guards used for Vyndra while they were transporting her.

"No worries, if she's coming up here then there is a good chance my boy is as well." Tyran said as he leaned back in his chair. "You know I don't want Ijaat knowing about my past as a Mandalorian, it's something I've tried to put behind me."

"_We've_ tried, you mean." Dyir said. "You aren't the only one who was fed up with that lifestyle."

Neada nodded her head. Tyran, Aru and Dyir had cut all ties to their roots on Mandalore to take the job as her bodyguards. Tyran had taken the opportunity to make sure his son could grow up without having to know what it was like to live the hard and brutal life of a mercenary. No Ijaat Numeck was going to grow up having the best education and never having known what it was like to have not eaten anything for a few weeks or to have to witness the atrocities of warfare. Neada imagined that the father would be worlds different than the son once Ijaat was grown.

Moments later the office doors split open and a small redheaded girl came rocketing into the room towards her mother. A slender but fierce looking woman with dark-brown hair that was pulled back into a tight tail entered behind her. The glare that Aru Numeck gave to her husband was cold enough to freeze a star. Dyir turned is head towards Tyran and gave him a what-did-you-do look and Tyran gave him a subtle shrug.

"Mother!" Vyndra Tash exclaimed as she raced into her mother's waiting arms. "I did well in my exam's today." She handed her mother a datapad with a scored report on it.

"Very good, maybe Aru will take you and Ijaat out later to get a few frozecones if you ask her." Neada said as she looked over the perfect score her daughter had been given.

"Can you take me?"

Neada looked away from her daughter for a brief second. As much as it pained her to admit it, Vyndra wasn't safe around her. The last thing Neada wanted was for her daughter to be collateral damage in an attempt on her life. That was why she spent the majority of her time with the Numecks. No, Vyndra spent every moment she wasn't in school with Aru and Ijaat. Still though a trip to get a few frozecones wouldn't take that long, there was a dispensary a few blocks up.

"Since you did so well, I guess I can take a few minutes to get my brilliant girl and her friend a frozecone."

Vyndra beamed up at her mother and the praise she had been given. Neada smiled back and understood why Tyran didn't want his child to grow up being a mercenary. She wouldn't have wanted Vyndra to join the Hapan Military.

The absence of his son did not go unnoticed by Tyran.

"Where's Ijaat?"

"Outside." Aru said. Her voice was as frosty as her gaze. "Chatting with Kovi Lasar, who by the way has taken far more interest in your son's studies than you have."

Neada stood up slowly as she watched Tyran's arms drop in what she had come to recognize as a combative stance. "Dyir, would you mind escorting me, Vyndra and Ijaat to the dispensary up the street."

Dyir looked up to Aru, he had learned that when she was around and he was given orders to do something with Ijaat that he had to get permission from her first. Aru nodded and Dyir nodded to Neada in return.

"Yeah we can go get the little runt's some frozecones." He smiled at his redheaded director. "Hey do I get one for being a good bodyguard."

"Maybe if you were a good bodyguard I'd get you one." Neada said smartly as she herded her daughter out the door. "You're adequate."

"Adequate my-" Dyir started but he caught Vyndra looking up at him. "-foot." he managed to mumble.

Neada shook her head and walked out the door. The moment they slid shut behind Dyir, Aru reeled on her husband.

"You're a real piece of work!" Her voice was so low it was practically a hiss. "You promised Ijaat you'd be there today."

"Be where?" Tyran said. He had no idea what Aru was talking about at first then it sunk in. Ijaat had been super excited that morning because he had made it to the finals of a big math competition. Tyran had promised him that he was going to be there. Just like he had done a thousand times before.

Aru sunk down into the chair that Dyir had vacated. "You did it again. You promised him something and failed to keep your word."

Tyran looked down at his feet and shook his head. "I'll make it up to him, I always do."

"This time is different," Aru said without looking at Tyran. "You made that promise to his face, not over a commlink from some secure facility while you were waiting for Neada to finish up some top-secret meeting. You looked your son in the eye and promised him you would be there and once again you never showed up." she looked up at Tyran with a pained expression. "You're just not a great father."

Tyran's head lifted a little and if her gaze before could have frozen a star, the heat from his gaze could have melted one. "What did you just say to me?"

"You heard me." Aru wasn't going to back down.

"I'm a good father."

"When was the last time you spent any time with him?" Aru snapped. "You spend as much time with him as Neada does with Vyndra, I'm amazed you even know his name."

"If it wasn't for me Ijaat wouldn't have any of the things he has now." Tyran growled back. "If I hadn't moved us away from Mandalore, Ijaat wouldn't be a well fed, well groomed, hyper-intelligent boy like he is now."

"At least he would have had an attentive father."

"I'd be gone all the time doing bounties and mercenary work to put food on the table, at least here he does get to see me."

"He only see's you at the breakfast table in the morning for fifteen minutes."

"Fifteen minutes is better than nothing!" Tyran yelled.

They both stared at each other for minutes that seemed like an eternity. Aru's eyes had become venomous with rage and Tyran could feel his heart hammering in his throat. Aru stood up slowly.

"Tyran if you don't shape up and start spending more time with your family then I'm...I'm" She was fighting to keep her voice level and the strain was evident. "I'm going back to Mandalore and I'm bringing Ijaat with me."

Tyran blinked a few times. He had to replay what she had just said to him a few times before the meaning had fully sunk in.

"If you want to leave, then you go ahead and leave. Ijaat stays here and that's not negotiable."

"He deserves better." Aru said as she began to lose the battle with her voice. "So either you start doing better or I take him to Mandalore and find someone who can do better." She reached down onto her belt and detached her datapad and tossed it to him. "I got a call that was meant for you today. I think you should call back."

Tyran caught her datapad as she stood up and turned to leave. He watched her leave the room and sunk down onto a bantha hide sofa against the far wall of the room as he looked at the comm code for the person who had called Aru. He didn't recognize it, but that wasn't so odd a lot of people in his profession used throwaway comm codes all the time.

Deciding that he needed to get his mind off of the argument he called the unknown code and waited for the call to pick up. It was almost instant.

"Tyran?"

Tyran shut his eyes and felt his blood run cold. The last thing he wanted to hear at the moment was the sound of his younger brother's voice.

"Let me make this very simple for you Rixa." Tyran said tiredly. "I've had a long day so if this is a call asking me to help dig you out of some situation you've gotten yourself into, I'm telling you right now that you can shove it."

There was a pause, not a long one though. "That's the kind of greeting I expected actually, but no I don't need you to come down from your mighty thrown and save my lowly backside for the thousandth time your majesty, but I do need your help with some intel."

Tyran grunted as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "You're a smart cookie I'm sure if you use your considerable contacts in the underworld you can find what you're looking for without me."

"That's the thing, my sources don't have anything on the target."

"You took a job without knowing anything about the target?"

"Not yet, if you turn me down then I'll have to turn the contract down because I can't come up with anything. No name, no location, not even species or gender."

"What do you have?"

"Just an alias. Red-Fang."

"What do you want from me?"

"Anything you can find out at all, get me somewhere to start a foot track from and I can do the rest."

Tyran sighed "Fine. I'll dig around, but this is it, nothing else after this."

"Thank you. One more thing, I need the intel in less than twenty hours."

"No promises." Tyran said. "I'll be in touch."

He ended the call and shut off the datapad.

Tyran spent the next five minutes sitting in silence before Dyir returned with Neada. Dyir tossed something to Tyran.

"Here got you a fizzade." Dyir said. Tyran caught it without looking and undid the cap and took a sip.

"Where are Ijaat and Vyndra?"

"Dropped them off at your place, Aru called me and said she was already there."

The complex where Tyran and Aru lived was a few minutes walk from the ODS headquarters building. Tyran nodded but kept his eyes on the expensive carpet.

"I've seen that look before, what are you thinking about?"

"I just had a conversation with Rixa." Tyran said with his gaze fixed on a spot on the ground as he tried to avoid what he was really thinking about.

"Really?" Dyir said.

Tyran nodded. "He's researching a potential contract on a target, but all he has is an alias to go on. You ever heard of someone by the name of Red-Fang?"

"Can't say that I have." Dyir took on a thoughtful expression as he pondered the name.

"Who's Rixa?" Neada asked as she drank her own fizzade from behind her desk.

"My brother." Tyran said sourly. "What about you Neada, ever heard of Red-Fang?"

She shook her head. "No I haven't."

"Could you look into it for me? His contacts came up empty and he asked me to dig around." Tyran asked.

"Are you finally calling in a favor?" She asked him.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Ok then I'll get our analysts to search through the files and gather anything and everything referring to Red-Fang."

"I need it in twenty hours or less."

Neada stared at him. "That's gonna cost you two favors."


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO:**

**KUAT CITY, KUAT, HOME OF TYRAN AND ARU NUMECK, 40 ABY**

**FOUR DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Aru sighed as she pulled the two merlie steaks out of the gasser and placed them on two plate that had large heaps of mashed topatos that were covered in an imported Hapan gravy. For a woman who was wanted by the Hapans, Neada Tash sure could get her hands on a lot of Hapan goods. Aru walked over to the conservator and grabbed the container of blue-milk and poured some into a glass and added a decent squirt of chocolate syrup, that was also imported from Hapes. She gave it a quick stir for a few seconds and then brought the glass of milk and one of the plates of food to the large imported worshyr wood table that dominated the central room of the large apartment.

At one end of the table was the redheaded daughter of Neada Tash. Little Vyndra was being harassed by the one threat that Aru couldn't protect her from: the floating orb that was her home tutor. The TD-5 Tutor Droid floated overhead as Vyndra looked down at a sheet of flimsi with hand drawn math equations for her to solve. Aru smiled slightly as she walked behind Vyndra and the droid and placed the food and the milk in front of the girl.

"Tee-Dee it's the weekend and Mrs. Kioda didn't set any homework for the class to do. So why do I have to do these math problems?"

"Why to keep your mind sharp." The droid said as if it was an obvious answer. "The less you do these problems, the easier it becomes to forget how to solve them."

"I spent all day doing exams like this and I don't want to do anymore."

"Breaks are not part of your planned study regime I'm afraid." Tee-Dee carried on. "Only once you have finished the sheet in front of you can you rest for one standard hour before moving on to the next set."

Vyndra looked to Aru and gave her an expression that was just on the verge of hopeless despair and it made the older woman laugh. Aru grabbed the circular droid out from the air with her hand and hit it's manual standby switch. The droids protests were silenced with an electronic snap. Vyndra smiled up at her bodyguard and grabbed the fork that she was then handed and began digging into the mountain of mashed topatos. Her eyes shut as she embraced the velvety texture of the Hapan gravy and began thinking of the world she should have been growing up on.

"Have you ever been to Hapes?" Vyndra asked around a mouth full of mashed topato.

Aru shook her head. "I've been to a lot of worlds in my time, but never to Hapes." She walked back to the kitchen and grabbed the second plate of food. "Eat all of that or I will turn Tee-Dee back on."

Vyndra resumed eating at a steady pace while her bodyguard walked down the hall to one of the small bedrooms that littered the apartment. She knocked several times before walking into the dark room. On the bed there was a crude tent made out of bedsheets and blankets, a soft dim light was emitting from the center of it. Aru waited for a moment feeling sad for her son as she flipped on the switch to the illumination panels in the ceiling. There was no sign in the tent that Ijaat knew she was there, but that was the point her son was trying to make. He wanted to be left alone.

"Ijaat, I brought you your dinner." She said trying to sound friendly hoping it would draw her son out from the shelter he had retreated into hours ago after coming home. "It's your favorite: merlie steak with mashed topatos."

"I don't want it." Ijaat said glumly from the confines of his homemade structure. "Please go away."

Aru felt her heart shatter at the pain in her son's voice. She wanted to climb into the tent and just talk with him but she couldn't see an opening into the makeshift shelter and decided against it. She feared that if she ruined the tent that it would make her son all the more angry.

"It'll be in the nanowave if you decide to change your mind." She said sadly as she hit the illumination panel switch again plunging her son back into the darkness he desired.

He gave no sign of acknowledgment as she left the room and returned to the dining room. Vyndra gave her a sad look as Aru walked by her with the full plate of food still in her hands. All Aru could do was shrug at the small girl as she headed into the kitchen and placed the food in the nanowave as promised. She couldn't be angry at her son for not wanting to eat anything, all the blame could be placed on Tyran's shoulders for that. Her husband could actually be blamed for a lot.

With each passing day her plan of taking her son back to Mandalore seemed like it was becoming her best option, it was actually the only way she could show Tyran just how detached he had become from his family. If that failed to change him then she would have no problem following through on her promise to find someone who would not only meet Ijaat's needs but hers as well. Aru didn't want to have to fulfill that promise but if Tyran kept going the way he was going then she would without looking back and he would only be able to blame himself.

Aru walked over to the caf dispenser and poured herself a large cup without adding anything to it and sat down next to Vyndra. The little girl had devoured most of the steak and topatos on her plate and was now pushing a lone piece of gristle around with her fork. The backs of her feet were making soft thumping noise as they smacked against the legs of the chair she was sitting in.

"Is Ijaat going to be alright?" She asked quietly as she played with the gristle on her plate.

Aru sighed heavily as she thought about her answer. "Yes Ijaat is going to be fine." Aru found the little girl's worry for Ijaat heartwarming. "Finish your milk and then it's time for you to take a sanisteam and then go to bed."

Vyndra looked at Aru. "Do I have to go to bed right away?"

Aru let out a tired laugh. "It is the weekend so I don't suppose and extra hour or two wont hurt anything."

Vyndra smiled and got from her chair and gave Aru and hug before heading for the sanisteam. Aru used the next twenty minutes to just sit and relax as she sipped at her unsweetened caf. The sadness she felt for her son only grew as she realized that Vyndra was his only real friend. She strongly suspected that as they both grew older that their friendship would blossom into something else. That was the only thing that Aru found herself agreeing with Neada Tash on. A bitterness tinged with some jealousy had developed inside Aru when it came to her husband's employer.

She was a Hapan and it was no secret how Hapan women viewed men as nothing more than breeding stock and status markers. Aru understood the threat that the woman was under and that she needed a good security detail, but she was keeping both Tyran and Dyir in the office for much longer than she really needed to. Maybe it was just paranoia on her part mixed with the increasing anger she felt towards Tyran and his continued absence in Ijaat's childhood. Deep down inside she knew that Tyran wouldn't ever have an affair, but she couldn't stop thinking that maybe some part of her secretly wanted him to so she could have all the more reason to leave Kuat and head back to Mandalore with her son.

Vyndra reappeared wearing her night clothes, her hair was still damp and clinging to her neck and face. She had a small brush in her hands and gave it to Aru. The two of them sat down on the couch and Aru began the process of brushing the small girl's hair. Aru felt a sudden pang of sorrow for Vyndra. She was just as detached from her mother as Ijaat was from Tyran. Aru hadn't known she was going to inherit Neada's motherly duties when she had agreed to protect Vyndra. If she had to follow through on her threat it would also mean abandoning the girl and virtually robbing her of the closest thing she had to a mother.

But when it came down to it Vyndra wasn't her daughter and she had to do what was right for Ijaat and if that meant leaving Kuat then that was what she was going to do. She finished brushing Vyndra's hair and the small girl curled up next to to her on the couch.

"Can we watch a holovid?" She asked Aru.

Aru shrugged. "I guess so, want to watch anything in particular?"

Aru grabbed the controller and activated the vidscreen and brought up a menu of stored holovids on the home recorder box. She handed the controller to Vyndra to let her pick something on the list. It didn't surprise her when the girl picked a documentary, it suited her curious nature, the content the documentary covered did however. The documentary was: _Contested – Gyndine and the Yuuzhan Vong Invasion._ Sadly she had some not so fond memories of that planet. Aru remembered flying over the surface in her Gladiator starfighter, before she had been issued a top of the line XJ3 by the Alliance later on in the war.

It had been converted and bombed beyond recognition during the repeated attempts by the Galactic Alliance to retake the world, and the final battle between the Mandalorian Supercommandos, commanded by Boba Fett and the Yuuzhan Vong warriors of Domain Rurjak. Unfortunately it was something that was now being covered in Vyndra and Ijaat's school lessons.

"Can we watch this?"

"Do you really want to?" Aru asked.

"Yes, it will give me an edge when we go back to class."

"How come you didn't want to do your math work for class but you want to watch this?"

"Well I already know my math," Vyndra said with a shrug. "I don't know much about this other than what we've covered."

Aru relented. "Okay we can watch it, but don't come running into my room tonight if you have a nightmare."

"I won't have any nightmares, it's only a holovid. How scary can it be?"

Aru thought back on the images and aftermath of battlefields she had been on after fighting the Yuuzhan Vong. She hadn't faced the warrior-caste in close-quarters-combat, but rather fought them from the cockpit of her starfighter. She'd heard the stories of their brutality though and had seen the savagery they could inflict secondhand via after action reports and HUD recordings.

"Scarier than you might think."

Tyran couldn't put it off any further and he knew it, if he stayed at the office any longer then it would only make things worse for him when he finally did go home. Neada had left hours ago with Dyir which had left him to deal with the problems presented to him in peace. He didn't pay his younger brother any mind at all and didn't really care if Neada and her analysts found the information he needed on Red-Fang. The problems Rixa and the others in the Numeck Homestead were having were not his concern at the moment. Tyran's only concern was his wife leaving and threatening to take Ijaat with her to Mandalore.

If that happened then everything he had done in the last decade meant nothing. He had worked himself to the bone to create a life that neither he or Aru had ever dreamed possible as teenagers, and now he couldn't figure out why it was all coming undone around him. It wasn't his fault that protecting Neada was a full time job and required him to spend the majority of his time with her. It had to be because Neada was a Hapan, and a particularly beautiful one at that, that Aru had become suspicious of his employer. The long hours and many distant trips they took together didn't help to assuage her concerns.

That couldn't be helped though, Aru just had to trust him to be faithful, and he had been. As far as things went with Ijaat, Aru had him cornered. He knew he could have made better efforts to partake in his son's education. It wasn't like Neada would have told him he couldn't take an hour or two off so he could go watch his son win an award. But Aru had gone too far when she had called him a bad father, unattentive would have been the more accurate word. Aru had thrown down the gauntlet and he had to come up with appropriate response. What exactly his response was going to be he had yet to figure out.

The one thing he knew for certain was that Ijaat was never going to set foot on Mandalore.

He took a deep breath and exited Neada's office and proceeded to exit the building only stopping when he had to wait for the night guard to unlock the doors to the building to allow him to leave. He stopped at a street vendor and bought a bottle of fizzade and a chocolate candy bar that he knew Ijaat was fond of. This wasn't the first time he'd had to apologize to his son for missing something important and he'd learned that sugary products tended to help.

The walk back to his home was far too quick and he found himself standing outside his apartment door hesitating to hit the palm switch. He shut his eyes and took in a steadying breath and braced himself for the big night of arguing he had ahead of him. He pressed his hand against the switch and the door parted with a soft _woosh._ Tyran stepped into the room and turned his head towards the vidscreen and the sound coming from the speakers. He was taken aback by the stock footage of Yuuzhan Vong hordes swarming over the rolling hills of a battlefield he recognized all too well. Two heads looked up at him from over the back of the couch, both of them were glaring at him and he scowled in return.

"Don't give me that look Vyndra." He said tiredly. "At least wait until your a teenager before giving me looks like that."

Vyndra's glare didn't falter as he walked further into the room. Aru wrapped her arm around the small girl in a clear show of a united front.

"Glad you could take time from your schedule to come home." Aru said coldly.

"I almost didn't." Tyran shot back with his voice just as frosty. "Where is Ijaat?"

"Where do you think? He wont come out and he wont eat anything."

Tyran walked over to the kitchen and opened the nanowave, Ijaat's plate was sitting in it untouched, Tyran closed the nanowave and hit the reheat button on the interface. The machine hummed into life and Tyran realized just how many times he had done this before. He had his son's favorite candy bar and fizzade tucked away in his back pocket, he knew just how long to reheat his son's dinner because it was all heavily practiced routine.

Aru walked around the corner not looking any happier. She crossed her arms and leaned against the counter. Tyran made an obvious effort to not make eye contact with her.

"How many times are you going to put him through this?" She asked as she tried to counter her husband's attempts at evasiveness. "How many times am I going to have to watch Ijaat fall to pieces, pull himself together and get shattered all over again?"

Tyran didn't respond as the nanowave buzzed and he pulled the plate of food out and turned away from her as he exited the kitchen. Aru followed him and grabbed onto his bicep. Tyran stopped and looked down at her hand and back up at her. "I don't have anything to say to you and you've said more than enough so let go of my arm."

Aru glared at him but released his arm and Tyran walked down the hallway to his son's room. He didn't bother knocking and just entered the dark room. He activated the illumination panel switch and moved up to the makeshift tent. Unlike Aru, Tyran knew how to enter the surprisingly sturdy, yet simple structure. It was nothing more than a bed sheet tied to the top of the four bedposts of his son's bed with blankets draped over the sides in an apparently disorganized fashion. He walked over to the left side of the bed and simply lifted the sheet to reveal the dark interior. He placed the plate of food on the bed.

"Eat." He said patiently. "You know your mother doesn't like to cook so you should take advantage of it when she does."

A small hand appeared from the darkness and pulled inside. "How come you didn't show up this time?" A soft voice echoed out.

Tyran sat down on the floor next to the bed and inhaled deeply. "After the attack on Toryaz Station, security was beefed up for every Government official, not just Neada. I know that competition was important to you but-"

"-But you have a job to do." Ijaat finished for his father. "I've heard it before dad."

Tyran nodded his head. "I guess this isn't the first time we've had this conversation." Tyran just happened to glance up at that moment and his eyes fell on the collection of trophies and ribbons his son had collected. His guilt rose as he realized that he hadn't been there to see Ijaat win any of them. "I'm sorry."

There was a few minutes where the gentle scraping of Ijaat's fork on his plate was the only sound that filled the room. "Mom has been talking about going to someplace called Mandalore." Ijaat said around a full mouth. "I looked it up and I can't understand why she would want to go there."

"She told you that?" Tyran said trying to keep his voice even. He was furious that his wife would go and reveal things he had spent so long trying to hide from Ijaat. He couldn't help but feel that everything was going to come unraveled in the next few moments.

"No, I was listening to a conversation she was having with another bodyguard at school." Ijaat said. "Why does she want to go to Mandalore?"

A direct question that had a direct answer Tyran didn't want to give and he scratched at the side of his head as he carefully thought about how to phrase his answer. Oddly enough he decided to go with the truth, just a different kind of truth.

"She has some friends there. Your mother doesn't think I'm doing a very good job as a father and she told me she's going to leave and take you there with her to find someone who can do better."

There was silence from the tent for a few seconds and the fork scraped against the plate again.

"That's not such a bad idea." Ijaat said slowly. "You really haven't been home much and when you are you don't really talk to us."

Tyran stared into the dark entryway of the tent not believing what he was hearing.

"You want a new father?" He asked.

Ijaat's hesitation to answer actually answered for him.

"Sometimes I do." He whispered.

Tyran felt his fingers clench into fists and something painful rose up from his chest and into his throat. He bit down on the inside of his cheek and placed the fizzade and candy bar gently on the bed.

"I hope you realize that everything I do is done so you don't have to become what I became." Tyran stood up and turned for the door. "I'm sorry you and your mother can't appreciate that."

He walked out of the bedroom and headed straight for the door to the apartment. Aru crossed the living room in a second grabbing his arm before he could hit the palm switch.

"Where are you going now?!"

Tyran turned and faced her. "I don't know and wouldn't tell you even if I did."

Aru was taken aback by the pain she saw in Tyran's eyes. The last time she had seen him look like that was when he had learned his father had died fighting off the Yuuzhan Vong on Mandalore.

"What's going on?" She asked.

"Congratulations," Tyran said his voice sounded truly defeated. "You got what you wanted. Our son thinks I am just as bad at being a father as you do. If the two of you want to go to Mandalore, I wont stop you."

He hit the palm switch and disappeared out the door before Aru could say anything. Aru stood in front of the polished worshyr wood table that dominated the center of the apartment and found herself not knowing what to do. A part of her wanted to go and chase after Tyran and just talk with him and the other part felt content to let him sit and fester. He had done this to himself after all. She decided against following Tyran because he would come back in an hour or two, he always did, and she headed down the hallway to check on her real priority.

**CORUSCANT, GALACTIC CITY, SPACEPORT, 40 ABY, EIGHT HOURS TO RED-FANG DEADLINE, FIVE DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Rixa yawned as he stretched in the cramped confines of his wife's old XJ3 series X-Wing. He decided he wasn't going to spend credits on a room at one of the many hotels that littered the skylanes near the spaceport. He still felt that at twenty-nine years of age that his body was still young enough to deal with the aches and pains that would come from sleeping in an enclosed space such as he was. Rixa also decided that he wasn't going to submit to gender bias next time and give his wife the much more roomy and comfortable Aggressor starfighter that they also owned. He checked his datapad for any calls he may have gotten while he was sleeping and found nothing.

He checked the chrono on his wrist and sighed. He only had eight hours before he had to call Vitrix back and give him a decision about taking the Red-Fang job. If Tyran didn't call him back with the intel he needed, Rixa was contemplating taking the job anyway and just waiting for Tyran to deliver the intelligence whenever he got it. The only drawback to that plan was he didn't even know if Tyran had taken his request seriously and followed through on it or had simply said he would dig around just to end the conversation quicker. Either way time was running out and a decision needed to be made and he needed to make it soon.

He activated the holo-communicator and tapped in Jaya's comm code and waited for her to answer. Maybe he could give her some good advice on how to deal with the situation. Though he suspected she would just tell him to come home and be done with it. It took longer than usual for her to answer his call but then he realized what time it was on Mandalore, she would have been sleeping. Jaya appeared on the holodisplay before him, her hair was no longer tightly braided to her head but actually just tied back. She certainly appeared to have been roused from her sleep.

"Did I wake you?" He asked.

"No, the twins did." Jaya yawned.

Rixa laughed. The twin children of Ryia Devieyc and his wife Lin were the household alarm clocks and usually kept a pretty standard cycle when it came to crying. "Well at least they are consistent."

Jaya smiled tiredly. "How goes your hunt for the mysterious Red-Fang?"

"Still haven't started it yet." Rixa admitted. "I'm waiting on Tyran to get me that information, but I've only got eight hours left before I have to call the contact and give him my decision."

"What are you going to do if Tyran doesn't call you before the deadline is up?"

"Well..." Rixa sighed. "I might just accept the mission and give it my best shot until Tyran does call me with the information."

"_If _he calls you with the information," Jaya said. "He may have just said to hell with it and left you in a bind."

"He very well might have but I have to do something. The Homestead doesn't take care of itself unfortunately."

"I think you should just tell your contact you can't do it and come home, we've got enough credits to last through the summer."

"What about the winter Jaya?" Rixa said. "This contract could lead to a lot more contracts with the Galactic Alliance, lucrative contracts that we can't pass up just because we can't locate the target right away."

"I can't argue with that." Jaya conceded. "If you need help please make sure to call Me, Ryia or one of the others."

"Don't I always call for help at some point?" Rixa grinned at the holographic image of his wife.

"Yeah but just make sure you don't get into the kind of trouble that only your brother can get you out...because you might not be able to get out of it."

"I know that if I really needed him that Tyran would do the right thing."

"The right thing for him or the right thing for the family?" Jaya said. "Think about the next time you call him for help."

"Yeah I promise to keep that in mind." Rixa said. "I'll be home soon, with or without a contract."

"I'll be counting the seconds." Jaya smiled and her image faded from the screen.

Rixa exhaled and powered down the holo-communicator and leaned his head against the head rest of his seat. He realized now how hard it had been for Tyran to try and provide for the residents of Homestead for as long as he had. Rixa suddenly understood why Tyran had left in the manner that he had and instantly felt bad for all the cruel things he had secretly called his older brother over the years. Rixa just hadn't understood the pressures his brother had been under. Still though Tyran had managed to do a better job at providing for the family then Rixa was doing. It proved how much reputation meant in their line of work.

How was Rixa supposed to compete with a man who was known for bringing down an entire Yuuzhan Vong warrior-caste damutek down onto not only himself, but the yammosk coordinator that lived in the warrens directly below the damutek, and lived to tell about it. Tyran had a reputation and a long list of accomplishments that made him seem invincible. Rixa on the other hand had quite the opposite reputation, despite his skill level he was known for getting himself into tight spots he couldn't get out of and often being able to not deliver on a contract.

That was the old Rixa though, one still recovering from the mental damage caused by the Yuuzhan Vong Breaking. There weren't many people who could say they had survived one of those. He was older now and much wiser, at least he thought he was, and he was slowly eroding away his less than stellar reputation. It just didn't seem like enough though. The frustration of it kept him up some nights.

His commlink began to chirp and he instantly snatched it into his hand and answered the call.

"Yeah?"

"Rixa?"

His eyes narrowed. He knew that voice and could tell that something wasn't right. "Aru? Whats wrong?" He sat up straighter in his seat.

"Are you still on Coruscant?" Aru asked.

"Yes but I don't know what that has to do with anything." Rixa said.

"I need you to come to Kuat, I've got a problem."

Well this was a first. "What kind of problem?"

"Me and Tyran had an argument yesterday and it went on into the night. Tyran left the apartment and he didn't come back."

"He's probably working." Rixa said.

"No he isn't." Aru said. "His boss hasn't seen him at all, which is highly unusual, and the _Tal'galaar_ is still in it's berth, and before you say anything I already know he isn't on the ship. I checked. He hasn't been to any of the cantinas or tapcafs, he hasn't gone to the orbital rings, or offworld at all. I'm getting worried."

"So go look for him." Rixa said as he felt his hopes of getting his intel on time plummet. "I can't help you."

"I can't. I don't have anyone to watch the kids while I go play bounty-hunter. If I have to pay you we can talk price."

The offer was tempting. Did she say kids? That was plural, had she and Tyran had another child? Rixa sighed. "I'm not going to take your money, and Creation knows I could use it. I'll be in-system in three hours."

"I'll make sure you get through the picket-ships without a hassle."

"That would be much appreciated."

"Oh don't wear your armor, I don't need Ijaat seeing a fully armored Mando sitting in our living room, at least not yet."

"Yeah, yeah I'll keep Tyran's dirty little secret a secret." Rixa said a bit agitatedly as he began warming up the drives. His wife's R2 unit had already programmed the navicomputer for the hyperspace jump to Kuat. "See you in a few hours."

The call ended on the opposite end and Rixa scratched at his beard. Tyran was missing, probably on a bender somewhere in the bowels of Kuat City. It didn't bode well for Red-Fang at all.

"Rusty patch me through to Colonel Vitrix." The rust colored droid bleeped and twittled and soon Rixa's holo-communicator was up and running again with a new holoimage.

"May I ask how you got this number? It is my private line." Vitrix asked coolly.

"I'm resourceful." But not resourceful enough. He didn't add. "I'll take the job Colonel."

"Splendid. Now should we talk price?"

"We can do that in person, same meeting place as last time. I have some pressing business to attend to elsewhere I'm afraid so is two days from now okay with you?"

"Is this business unavoidable?"

"Sorry to say that it is."

"Then I see little point in arguing the matter. Two days from now, Skyview Terrace, fourteen-thirty hours galactic standard."

"Agreed." Rixa said.

"See you then."

The holoimage faded away and Rixa brought his X-Wing up out of the berth and pointed it on the course his droid had programmed. "You know what Rusty, you take control of the ship for a while, I've got some thinking to do."

The droid tweetled a confirmation and a few seconds later Rixa and his craft were soaring up into Coruscant's upper atmosphere.

**KAYTA SYSTEM, KAYTARES VII, GALACTIC ALLIANCE SECURE FACILITY [UNDER CONSTRUCTION], 40 ABY, ****FIVE DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Iman Vitrix stared at the small communicator in his hand. How that low rent mercenary Rixa Numeck had managed to get his grubby hands on the comm code to his personal line was beyond the Zabrak. Fear that he may have underestimated Rixa Numeck warmed his blood and fought off the cold that seeped into every hallway of the makeshift camp he was visiting while an army of construction droids built his newest acquisition. The Kaytares Black-Site was the gem he had been looking for since Red-Fang had fallen apart. It was here he could place all his enemies and political rivals, after having some thoroughly prepared and completely false evidence that condemned them as traitors to the Galactic Alliance planted here and there. He could then use them as his lab rats for some of his more aggressive plans.

This complex was completely off the grid, a total of nine government officials knew it existed, six of them had been suddenly killed after disagreeing with him on the new purpose of the facility. Now the facility was his own to do with as he pleased. Sadly it once again paired him with Odas Zistra, for all the Gran's faults his one saving grace was that he could keep a secret, with his help Vitrix had neatly erased this prison from the grid. Mostly, some of the remaining military members of what was now called the K-Group still wanted to have suspected Corellian sympathizers brought here for interrogation away from the prying eyes of oversight committees and the Jedi who hampered them getting results, causing more threats to arise before they could be quelled.

Vitrix was a patriot and had no qualms about this, as long as he got to have his way and run his schemes without any interference then he would let his fellow military brethren conduct their alternative interrogation techniques unhindered by the laws passed by Omas and the Senate.

Still he couldn't shake his worry about Rixa Numeck. If the bounty-hunter could get his personal line, he wondered what else he might have gotten access to. He made a judgment call and activated his throwaway commlink. The person on the other end took two seconds to pick up.

"What?" a gruff voice echoed.

Vitrix smiled. "I am Colonel Iman Vitrix of the Galactic Alliance Special Deployment Group. I hear you specialize in killing Numecks?"


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE**

**KUAT SYSTEM, GALACTIC ALLIANCE FLOTILLA, 40 ABY**

**FIVE DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATIONARY**

Rixa clenched his jaw as his X-Wing came out of hyperspace a few hundred meters from the hull of an _Imperial-II_-class Star Destroyer. It had been several hours since he had talked with Aru and he hoped she had managed to get him a pass through the security flotilla. He couldn't help but notice all the turbolaser batteries bristling along the triangular hull of the ship.

"Unidentified X-Wing this space is a secure military zone, state your name and purpose for entering the system." A voice thick with a Coruscanti accent said over the commlink.

_Still a bit paranoid after the incident on Toryaz I take it, eh boys?_ He thought. "Rixa Numeck, I am here to meet with my sister-in-law, Aru Numeck. She should have secured authorization for me to pass through the flotilla."

"One moment." The voice said.

Rixa tightened his grip on the flight controls of his X-Wing as he waited for the controller to clear him. Security had sure been increased after the incident on Toryaz Station a few days earlier. He just hoped that he didn't wind up jinking and juking around a flight of GA starfighters as he was chased out of the system. Rixa couldn't stop but think that maybe this was some kind of elaborate trap laid out by Tyran to get the message across that he didn't want anything to do with Rixa or the family on Mandalore. He squashed the thought, Tyran did his intimidating in person not through the massive impressiveness of a fleet of Star Destroyers.

In all honesty Rixa was more afraid of Tyran than he was of an entire Galactic Alliance battelgroup.

"Rixa Numeck, you are cleared for landing." The voice said. "Proceed on your current course. Any deviation will be treated as hostile and dealt with accordingly."

"Roger that." Rixa said as he increased his throttle slightly. Some relief flooded through him as his ship passed over the hull of the Star Destroyer.

He took his X-wing down the designated flightpath and dropped into Kuat's atmosphere. His wife's R2 droid did the communicating with the tower controller as he neared the spaceport without any further incident with the military. Rixa considered contacting Aru to let her know he was in the system but figured she probably already knew. No calls had been stored on his commlink while he had been traveling through hyperspace, so he was sure that nothing had changed concerning the situation his older brother was in. Aru would have called him if there had been some kind of development.

Rixa set the X-Wing down in the designated berth and grabbed an equipment bag from the storage space behind the seat. Aru didn't want him showing up in full Mando gear, that was fine with him he'd do as she wished. He was fully aware of the careful story that Tyran and Aru had concocted to shield their son from the fact he was a Mandalorian. A hangar assistant appeared with a rolling ladder and attached it to the side of the X-Wing as Rixa opened the cockpit. He climbed down the ladder and was met by an older man in an expensive navy-blue tunic holding a datapad.

"How long will you be staying?"

"No more than two days." Rixa said.

"Your docking fee is two-hundred and fifty credits. You will be charged another hundred for every day afterward."

Rixa didn't bother arguing with man and gave him the required credits and walked over to the public 'freshers and climbed out of his armor and flightsuit. His father had given both him and Tyran a piece of advice that both of them had heeded in their careers.

"Make sure you're always wearing pants under your flightsuit, you don't ever want to have to make a quick escape in your underwear." Ruima Numeck had told his sons.

There must have been an entertaining story behind that little gem of advice but Rixa had never bothered to ask. He suddenly wondered if Tyran ever had and decided to ask him about it. Rixa tucked his black flightsuit and armor pieces away into the equipment bag and returned to his X-Wing and shoved the bag behind the seat before climbing back down and activating the security system on the ship. If anyone touched it before he disarmed the system they would receive a near lethal electric shock to their nervous system. His wife's rusty colored R2 unit rolled up beside him and tweedled.

"No I don't have any clue where Tyran is Domehead." Rixa said patting the droid affectionately on it's aforementioned dome shaped cranium as it rolled along beside him. "Hopefully Aru can give me something to go on, the last thing I need is to be working two jobs that have me looking for someone who doesn't want to be found." There was no question that if Tyran was actively avoiding being located no one was going to be able to find him.

The droid tweedled and they both made their way out of the hangar berth and out into the busy streets of Kuat City. There were speederlanes and skylanes just like on Coruscant, just not on the same scale. He flagged down a taxi and secured his R2 unit in the luggage compartment and gave the driver the location he needed to get to. Through some research he had done years ago, in one of those I-wonder-what-they're-up-to moments, Rixa knew where his brother and sister-in-law lived and that they worked for a government organization called the Office of Domestic Security. A little further digging had revealed that they worked directly for a woman named Neada Tash.

He knew where she lived as well and found himself amazed that his sources could get intelligence on highly classified government files but nothing on a simple terrorist named Red-Fang. Maybe Red-Fang wasn't the simple terrorist that Rixa had been lead to believe. The taxi dropped him and his droid off at their destination, a block from the main building of the ODS. He wanted to scope it out before actually approaching, just in case. To his veteran eyes it appeared to be exactly what it was: a high functioning government building. A few blocks up from it was the apartment his brother and sister-in-law shared.

"Rusty, go to Aru's apartment and do a scan for any living lifeforms inside, send me a message on my commlink when you finish the scan. After that I want you to find a good spot and hideout there until I come and get you. Foreign droids aren't usually welcomed in intelligence service buildings like this one."

The droid tweedled again and motored off to the apartment of Tyran and Aru Numeck. Rixa let out a quick breath of air and walked over to the ODS building. The main lobby was made of solid and highly polished black marble with silver inlays of the Kuat Family crest every ten meters on the impressive ceiling. He approached the desk where a burly looking human was seated eying him over apprehensively. Rixa suspected he would have done no different than the guard if a two-meter tall, two-hundred and thirty pound man, decked out in black clothing and tattoos was approaching him.

"Can I help you?" The guard asked.

"I have a meeting with Aru Numeck." Rixa said as officially as he could.

"Name?"

"Rixa Numeck."

The guard stared at him for sometime before picking up a commlink that was connected to a receiver on his desk.

"Ma'am I have a Rixa Numeck here to see Aru Numeck...Yes...Yes Ma'am." He put the commlink down and looked up at Rixa. "Take the turbolift to the third floor, last door on your right."

"Not going to search me for weapons?"

"No point, you're a Numeck." The guard said. "You're a walking weapon. Director Tash has a slew of your type on her payroll who'll see to it you're dead long before you even reach for a weapon."

Tyran, it seemed, had made quite the impression on the folks who worked here.

Rixa stared at the guard for a few seconds and headed to the indicated turbolift and hit the button for the third floor. Rixa in fact had no weapons on his person, it was true he didn't need them being well versed in Corellian Ground Fighting and the ever classical Mandalorian Street Brawling. He could go toe-to-toe with most enemy combatants, except his big brother. The turbolift came to a halt and He walked out into the hallway. For an intelligence gathering service there seemed to be an awful lot of inactivity, the hallway was as barren as the radioactive zones on Raxus Prime. He entertained the idea once again that he was being set up but continued down the hallway nonetheless.

He stopped at the last door on his right. There was no palm scanner, door chime or external cameras or anything to signal the occupants on the other side that he was out in the hallway waiting. He was on the verge of just reaching out and knocking on the durasteel when the door suddenly swooshed open and he was face to face with a man he hadn't seen in a very long time.

"Dyir!" Rixa said completely caught off guard by the presence of his old friend. "Rumor had it that you were dead."

"Yeah well who do you think started that rumor?" Dyir said as he walked out into the hallway. Two guards materialized from out of thin air behind Rixa. "Relax, we just need to pat you down." Dyir said as Rixa tensed his body for what he thought was a double-cross. "Hold your arms out and spread your legs."

Rixa did as he was told. "So you got your eye fixed?" He said flatly.

Dyir nodded. "Robotic implant, I see you got your scars covered up with some artwork." His voice was just as frosty.

"Just the arms, still got the ones on my chest and back."

The guards stepped back and nodded at Dyir. "Why are you here Rixa?"

"Aru asked to meet with me."

"I don't believe that." Dyir said. "She knows how much of bad mood seeing you will put Tyran in."

"She wants me to find Tyran." Rixa said. "Apparently he is missing."

"He'll turn up, always does." Dyir said. "Him and Aru aren't getting along very well and he goes and blows off steam every once and again."

Rixa looked at him suspiciously. "You know where he is, don't you?"

"Go home Rixa," Dyir said threateningly. "Tyran doesn't want to see you anymore than he wants to see Aru right now. Let things cool off between them and let them work it out in their own time."

"Does Aru know you know where Tyran is?"

"Like I said, Tyran doesn't want to see her right now." Dyir deflected the question. "Get on your ship and go back to that worthless mudhole you call a home on Mandalore."

"Dyir! Let him in." A voice said from the room behind Dyir.

"Director I don't think that's-"

"I said let him in." The voice was soft but there was no mistaking the authority in it's tone. "Now."

Dyir exhaled in frustration and slowly stepped aside. Rixa shouldered past him, glaring daggers as he did so, and walked into the room. A woman with deep red-hair was sitting behind a very expensive desk with her fingers meshed under her chin. She was staring at Rixa intensely.

"Well, well the family resemblance is quite astonishing." Neada Tash said as she took in Rixa Numeck. "Aside from the tattoos and scars, I would have believed you to be twins."

"Yeah we get that a lot." Rixa said dismissively. "Where is Aru?"

"Currently she is watching over my daughter and her son at a birthday party for one of my fellow directors, but as you can see I'm too busy to attend it myself."

Now that Rixa was standing in the center of the room he could see that the woman's hair had been pulled back into a quickly, and messily tied tail and her clothes were somewhat ruffled. He glanced over his shoulder at Dyir and noticed his appearance was just as disheveled.

_When Tyran's away the grown ups will play._ He thought to himself. "Yeah, you look rather busy." Rixa said.

"I'm-"

"Neada Tash, Director of the Office of Domestic Security for the last decade, mother of one ten year old girl named Vyndra and you live in the hotel across the street on the four-hundredth floor." Rixa said. "I know who you are."

"Impressive."

"How do you know all of that?" Dyir said marching forward. "That's all classified."

"The name of her child and her occupation aren't, but everything else can be found out one way or another." Rixa said with a smug smile. "I do thorough background checks on all my targets."

Neada's eyes narrowed and Dyir had a hold-out blaster aimed at Rixa's head in an instant.

"Relax," Rixa said. "I'm not here to kill anyone, a couple years ago some Hapans called me and wanted me to off a rogue commando but in my research I discovered who she was and who was protecting her and turned the job down. Conflicting interests and all."

"You could find out my personal information but yet you couldn't come up with anything on this Red-Fang person? Interesting." Neada said motioning for Dyir to lower his weapon. "But considering how hard it was for my people to get their hands on that information, I'm not surprised."

Rixa felt his eyes go wide. "You have my intel?"

"Yes, but I can't give it to you until Tyran is present. The three of us will need to discuss something beforehand."

Rixa took in a sharp, frustrated breath. "How long until Aru get's back?"

Neada checked her wrist chrono. "An hour, Dyir will escort you to their apartment for the time being."

"I don't think that's a good idea Neada." Dyir began. "Tyran won't like it."

"I don't care what he does and doesn't like." Neada said. "Tyran is my employee and thus should be in this office right now doing his job, if he feels he can jeopardize my safety by leaving a hole in my security staff then I'm not going to have any qualms about letting his estranged brother into his house. So do as I say or go find another place of employment."

Dyir looked livid but nodded his head. "Yes ma'am." He managed to squeeze between his very compressed lips.

"And come right back after, me and you have a discussion to finish." Neada added quickly.

Dyir opened the door and waited for Rixa to walk out. The turbolift ride was as silent as it was tense as the two Mandalorians stood shoulder to shoulder. Rixa began laughing. "Must have been some discussion you were having, you've got some pretty nasty bite marks on your neck there Dyir." Rixa said amused.

Dyir clamped his hand on his neck instantly. "You tell no one about this."

"You think that my brother doesn't already know?" Rixa said with a raised eyebrow. "I'd be very shocked if he didn't."

Dyir looked suddenly unsure of the strength of his secret.

"So do you want to get me out your hair all the quicker and just tell me where my brother is or am I going to have to search this city top to bottom?"

"I'm not telling you where he is." Dyir said flatly. "Tyran doesn't want to be bothered by anyone right now, least of all by you."

"Fine." Rixa said. He was starting to get a suspicion that he knew where Tyran was, or at least the type of place at any rate. Until he talked with Aru and narrowed down his suspicions a little more he would play Dyir's game. "I'll look for him myself."

Dyir walked him out of the building and down the street to Tyran and Aru's apartment. Dyir entered a quick series of digits into the keypad next to the door and hit the palm scanner. The door swooshed open and Dyir turned towards Rixa.

"You cause any trouble, any at all that could damage what me, Tyran and Aru built here and I promise you I will personally ruin your career."

"I'm perfectly capable of ruining my own career." Rixa said. "If you don't mind I'm going to make myself at home while I wait."

With a final glare from Dyir the door slid shut again and Rixa was left in the open confines of a very spacious and lavish apartment.

**DERAL'S CANTINA, NAL HUTTA, 40 ABY**

**FIVE DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

"Iman Vitrix." Dain Dolvo said coolly as he read over the classified intelligence profiled cascading down his heads-up-display. "Seems to have a knack for dirty jobs."

He was sitting at the back of the cantina in a private booth with his feet up on the duraplast table while he read up on a potential employer. The Colonel had requested a service that all Dolvos had participated in over the centuries: Numeck Hunting. The only problem with that was the Numecks had participated in Dolvo hunting for just as long, and were just as good at it.

For generations Numecks and Dolvos had been at each others throats and the reason for the long running feud was lost to the invisible waves of time. Dain's father Giel had killed Tyran and Rixa's grand parents, earning the ire of their father Ruima Numeck. Ruima had made quite a reputation for himself during the three year hunt he spent tracking down Dain's father ultimately killing him in a one-on-one confrontation where it had all started: outside the _Oyu'baat._ It had been easy for Dain to hate Tyran and Rixa after that but truth be told, unlike the previous generations of Dolvos and Numecks, there was very little bad blood between Dain and the Numeck brothers. Probably because they had fought together against the Yuuzhan Vong.

After losing a man on a rescue mission Tyran had put aside their family feud and asked him to fill the spot in his roster and he had accepted. Tyran was very similar to Dain in a lot of ways, they were both cursed with the impressions their fathers had made in the Mandalorian Community. Tyran had gotten lucky with having to live up to a man who had a stellar reputation, Dain's father on the other hand had put a very negative impression on the people of Mandalore with trying to get his own cell of the old Death Watch group up off the ground.

It had been an unpopular move in the time of the Imperial Occupation and it remained to be unpopular even in the current Mandalorian environment. As horrible as the Yuuzhan Vong war had been Dain had taken advantage of it and had proved himself to be more than just the son of a failed Death Watch commander. He had worked well with Tyran liberating Katna Major and defending Caluula. He wouldn't go as far as to say he was friends with Tyran and Rixa, but he felt safe saying he trusted and respected them and hoped they felt the same. Now during hard times when jobs that paid big credits were few and far between Dain found himself with a tough decision to make.

The mission wasn't exactly an assassination, not yet at least, Vitrix just wanted him watched to make sure the younger Numeck didn't discover some dirty secrets that would put certain Alliance officials in an awkward position if exposed to the public. Dain had no problems with how a politician made his off-the-books money, he'd be paranoid if he was dealing with a politician who wasn't skimming creds off some government agency or another. Vitrix found this particular quality of his rather reassuring and was willing to pay handsomely for it. Dain supposed he was fortunate that he wasn't being asked to keep tabs on Tyran Numeck.

Despite the similarities the Numeck brother's shared they were worlds different when it came to their skills in counter-surveillance. Tyran would know within minutes that he was being watched by someone and would take potentially lethal actions to ensure he wouldn't be watched any further. Rixa Numeck was as lethal as any other Mandalorian Supercommando, but he was much more lax in his own personal security. It was the outcome of not having the same violently spectacular reputation that his older brother enjoyed, it meant having less enemies. It was advantageous for Dain.

He sent an encrypted message to the comm code he'd been told to contact after making his decision and removed his helmet to order another drink.

"Rixa, here's to hoping you'll keep your nose out of other peoples business." He said as his drink was placed in front of him. "That way I don't have to kill you. That way I wont have to face your brother."

**KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**FIVE DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

The interior of the heavily, but discreetly, armored landspeeder was quiet as Aru navigated through the busy sky and speederlanes. Tyran's unusual absence was a heavy weight on the shoulders of not only her but also her son, and by extension Vyndra as well. Vyndra and Ijaat were seated in the back of the car, the little Hapan girl was trying to cheer her friend up with silly jokes that she seemed to be making up on the spot. Ijaat felt responsible for his father's absence since it had been after they had talked that Tyran had left the apartment early in the evening.

When Aru had called Dyir to see if Tyran had shown up for work the next morning and he had told her Tyran wasn't there Aru knew that the time to make the choice between Kuat and Mandalore was approaching. She let Tyran get away with far more than he should have by clinging to the false hope that he might change. Aru knew Tyran better than anyone and she of all people should have known that Tyran never changed for anyone. The only reason she hadn't pulled up stakes and returned to her homeworld that very morning was Ijaat begging her, pleading that they just wait another day or two.

"I don't want Dad to think that I hate him." Ijaat had pleaded with very real tears in her eyes. "I want to apologize before leaving."

Aru couldn't say no to him even though she felt that Ijaat had nothing to really apologize for. She had told Ijaat to go to his room and had made the call to her brother-in-law, once again giving Tyran the ability to let down his family again by hoping he might come back and decide to put in a real effort into not only their relationship, but the non-existent one he shared with Ijaat. Asking Rixa to keep the fact he was a Mandalorian a secret was another way Aru was trying to avoid angering Tyran further, just in case he really did come back with with good intentions.

She was hoping against hope though, and she knew it. Sooner or later she was going to wind up back on Mandalore.

"Do you think he's home yet?" Ijaat asked suddenly through the reinforced permaglass that separated the driver's compartment from the passenger compartment. The sound of her son's voice cut through the dark fog Aru had been in and pulled her back into reality.

"What Ijaat?" She asked looking up into the mirror to see her son sitting closer to the permaglass.

"Dad? Do you think he might have come home?" His voice was hopeful and fearful at once.

Aru sighed heavily and shrugged. "I don't know Ijaat, I hope so, but I really don't know what's going through your father's mind right now."

Ijaat looked down and melted back into the passenger compartment next to Vyndra who smiled at him slightly, looked out the window and pointed at a bright red landspeeder and promptly, and playfully, punched Ijaat on the shoulder. It promptly launched the two children into a common traveling game where they would gently punch each other depending on whether or not they saw a certain colored landspeeder. Soon enough Ijaat was laughing somewhat as he called out a foul, which Aru had not known existed in that particular game.

"That speeder wasn't red it was pink." Ijaat was saying.

"So," Vyndra said smugly. "Pink is a lighter shade of red."

"It doesn't count." Ijaat continued.

"Does so."

"Mom!?"

Aru smiled, at least her son's mind had been pulled from worrying about Tyran for the moment. Vyndra was a clever girl to use Ijaat's knack of sticking explicitly to the rules against him in order to make him think about something else. "Sorry Ijaat, pink is a shade of red and therefore does count."

"Aww come on." Ijaat threw up his hands in protest.

"Sorry but Vyndra didn't break any rules this time."

Vyndra stuck her tongue out at Ijaat who adopted a sour look. "Cheater."

"Am not!"

"Are to!"

"Am not!"

"Are to!"

And so it continued for the next twenty minutes as Vyndra blatantly threw out all disregard for the rules of the speeder-punching game to keep Ijaat from thinking about his father. As she settled the armored speeder into the usual parking space Aru wondered why she had yet to hear from Rixa. Traveling to Kuat from Coruscant wasn't a particularly long trip and she had secured his entry into the system through the temporary military cordon. She decided to give him another hour before calling to see what was keeping him.

The two children continued to argue over who was a cheater and who wasn't as Aru herded them back towards the apartment. Aru marveled at how much Vyndra must have cared for Ijaat that she would rather have him angry with her than sad and depressed over his father. Yes there was probably something between them that would blossom and flourish as they matured and Aru entertained the idea of having half-Mandalorian, half-Hapan grand children. Both cultures had no small amount of fighting spirit, Aru had seen her fair share of Hapan Commandos in action during the War and they were almost as dangerous as a Supercommando.

Almost.

Aru would never accept that Neada operated on the same level as she or her sister or any of the other female Supercommandos who had fought, and died, during the War. It could have been because of her jealousy that her husband spent more time with Neada than with her, or the fact that Neada was even more of an absent parent to her daughter than Tyran was to Ijaat. Or it could have been simply because of both those reasons why Aru disliked Neada Tash and refused to believe they shared any common ground whatsoever. She liked the prospect of Ijaat and Vyndra ending up together, but wasn't fond of the idea of having to become family members with a woman she absolutely hated.

Aru pushed her simmering thoughts aside as she opened the apartment for the two squabbling kids but saw the man in the living room too late to react. Ijaat took one look at the man rising up off the couch and took off like a rocket in the man's direction.

"Dad!" He yelled as he impacted the man like a stun round wrapping his tiny arms around the man's large waist. "You came back."

Aru felt as awkward as her brother-in-law looked.

"Ijaat," Aru said softly. "That's not your father."

Ijaat had seemed to work that out for himself though. The man's muscles weren't the same and now that the tunnel vision had faded Ijaat could see the swirling tattoos covering the man's large arms. The man's hair, though the same shade of black as his father's but was shaved close to his head. There was a week or two of dark stubbly buildup on the man's chin. His eyes were a deeper shade of blue than Ijaat's father's eyes. But their faces were almost identical.

Ijaat backed slowly away and then ran behind his mother who laughed.

"Aren't you going to shoot him?" Vyndra whispered up at Aru as she hid behind her bodyguard.

"It's okay Vyndra, he's a friend of mine from the military." Aru said before looking at her son. "I asked him to come here and look for your dad."

The two children eased slightly but didn't move out from behind her. Aru walked into the living room an embraced her brother-in-law for a long while.

"How did you get in here?" She asked as she pulled away from him with a smile.

"Dyir let me in." Rixa said. "You didn't mention he was here with you guys."

Aru shrugged. "That's how he wanted it."

"I met his boss as well, she's a real piece of work." Rixa said sourly. "She could use a good smack in the back of the head."

Vyndra scowled and kicked Rixa in the shin. Rixa looked down with a raised eyebrow at the small girl.

"Don't say mean things about my mom!"

"Sorry but I call them like I see them." Rixa said with a laugh. "Whats with the girl?"

"Tyran and Dyir protect Neada. I protect Neada's daughter Vyndra."

Vyndra glared up at Rixa making him think that the little girl could handle herself pretty well. "Tidy arrangement."

"It works." Aru said with a sigh. She patted both kids on their heads. "Go get cleaned up before dinner. Me and Rixa need to talk about some grown-up things."

Ijaat looked up at Rixa. "You're going to find my dad right?"

Rixa looked at Aru, who gave him a sad look in return, then looked back down at Ijaat. "I'm going to try."

Ijaat sighed and walked away to his room while Vyndra went to hers. When they disappeared into their rooms Aru laughed quietly and hugged Rixa again. "It's good to see you. How's my little sister Jaya?"

"She's doing good, Jaiden's got himself a girlfriend now, they're getting pretty serious. Oh, Lin and Ryia had a set of twins a month ago."

Aru gasped happily. "Really!"

"Girl and a boy named Kelsi and Velsu."

"Oh that's wonderful, I should call her and see how she's doing."

Rixa nodded and inhaled slowly. "I'd love to sit and catch up but I am here for a reason."

Aru beckoned towards the door. "Lets talk outside away from prying eyes."

Rixa looked over his shoulder in time to see two child size heads disappear back into their respective rooms. He laughed and followed Aru outside to talk.

"So tell me what's going on."

Aru went into the events that led up to Tyran's disappearance, how he had missed Ijaat's school event, how she had threatened to leave him and called him a bad father and how the conversation between Tyran and Ijaat had been the final straw. Rixa listened intently without interrupting her as she spoke but it became very clear he wasn't pleased at all with how his brother had been treated as his face descended into a deeper scowl the longer she went on. When she finished he looked like he was going to give her a decent thrashing.

"It appears to me that you crossed a very big red line." He said after a few moments. "You have a lot of nerve calling him a bad father. Look what he built for his family, you have financial stability that I couldn't even dream of having, your son is getting one of the best educations in the galaxy."

"He is a good provider but when it comes to raising Ijaat I may as well have done it on my own." Aru said.

"Do you think it's easy for Tyran to separate himself from the two of you for so long?" Rixa asked. "Do you think he likes being away?"

"No of course not but-"

"But nothing, I'm going to take a guess that all you do is argue with him when he does come back right?"

"We argue a lot yes."

"Did it ever occur to you that he might just want to hold you for awhile because he misses you? Instead he comes back and you're in his face instantly and Ijaat locks himself away in his room because he's upset. Instead of enjoying him while he's home all you do is scream and avoid him. Not to mention the fact his own son thought it would be a good idea to have a new father, a notion I'm sure he picked up from you I assume?"

Aru stared at Rixa not knowing what to say.

"I'm going to find my brother, I have an idea of where to look but I'm going to tell you this." Rixa said pointing a finger at her. "Don't you even think about taking Ijaat from here and bringing him to Mandalore. If you do, I'll bring him back. Tyran didn't build this for you or himself." He indicated the massive apartment building next to them. "He built it for that boy."

"What if he doesn't want to come back?"

"He's coming back." Rixa assured her. "I'll make sure of it."

"Thank you." Aru said.

"Don't thank me." Rixa said as he started walking down the pedwalk. "Just answer a question for me."

"What?"

"Do you love him still?"

"Of course."

"Tell him that when I walk him through that door." Rixa gave her that signature sinister Numeck grin as he turned and headed away.


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER** FOUR:**

**OFF-WORLDER SECTOR, KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**SIX DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Kuat City, much like everything else in the galaxy, had a dark side and Rixa had no trouble figuring out why his older brother was hiding in such a place. The Off-Worlder Sector gave him the same uneasy feeling as some of the deeper levels of Coruscant. It was where Kuat Drive Yards housed the main workforce for their orbital shipyards. Rixa assumed that the KDY executives felt it worth the expense to ferry their workers to the orbital rings rather than house them on site due to the heavily decreased chances of sabotage or industrial espionage.

The Off-Worlder Sector was also home to some of the seediest bars and cantinas that Rixa had ever seen, and he'd been in more than a few in his career. At each one he stopped in he was instantly approached by a bouncer which was usually from a species that was naturally intimidating. Most of them appeared to be Whiphids and Togorians. They growled at him and demanded to know why he had come back after being thrown out. It usually took him a few seconds to calm everyone down and help them come to the conclusion that he wasn't who they thought he was.

After talking with each bouncer at several of the cantinas Rixa had learned his brother had indeed visited each one at some point during the day and had caused some sort of violent commotion for apparently no reason. It was exactly what Rixa had thought he would find his big brother doing, just like when they had been growing up on Mandalore. It was amazing how much people forgot over the years or maybe Aru had just decided to forget the months after the War had ended. Tyran had spent days traveling through the bars in Keldabe causing fist fights and brawls because he still had anger towards the Vong he needed to release.

This was almost the same thing except he couldn't take his anger out on his wife and son. The drunken patrons of the Off-Worlder Sector would bear the brunt of his anger. Rixa felt a genuine moment of sorrow for the people as he downed his second drink on the house at the cantina he was currently investigating. The bouncer had busted his nose and had insisted on buying Rixa a round once the identity situation had been clarified. It wasn't the first time Rixa had been punched in the face because someone had thought he was Tyran.

He thanked the bouncer for the drink and returned to his rented speeder and crossed the sixth cantina off a list of nine total cantinas in the Off-Worlder Sector. He consulted his datapad to find out which remaining cantina on the list was closest to him and settled on one named Jijji's. Hardly to his surprise Jijji's was owned by a Hutt named Jijji and his cantina was the seediest of them all so far. Cigarra smoke hung thick in the air and it smelled of nothing but rotted out fruits that were being put into sickeningly colored drinks.

He covered his mouth with the back of his hand as a disheveled Bith waiter crossed his path with a tray of stinking meats. "Sorry Aru I found Tyran but he was already dead from dysentery." He said in a mocking voice.

As with any Hutt owned establishment there were female Twi'leks everywhere. Dancing on counter-tops, serving disgusting drinks to patrons who were too enamored with their servers good looks to notice what they were drinking, and leading certain customers away from the main room through a door at the back of the bar. It didn't take much of a guess to figure out what for. He watched as one Twi'lek waitress leaned over as if in conversation with an Aqualish sitting at a table and relieved him of the credit chips that had been in his coat pocket. The Aqualish had never seen anything.

Rixa was sure several of the female waitresses had already made some snatch and grab runs on him as well, they casually bumped into him and gave a toothy smile as they said sorry and disappeared to whatever task they were pretending to be doing. Lucky for him he had nothing of value on his person. So far Rixa hadn't been stopped by a bouncer yet so either he had found a bar Tyran had yet to visit or he had arrived before Tyran had instigated his fight. He approached the bar and got the attention of a pink skinned Zeltron who had purple hair that fell just below her ears and was wearing a typically tight outfit designed to show off her curvacious form.

"What can I get you?" She said smiling as she leaned over the counter-top.

"You can help me me locate someone."

"You a bounty-hunter?" the Zeltron asked.

"Why? You have a bounty on your head?" Rixa countered.

"Do I look like the type of girl who has a bounty on her head?" She countered back.

"You Zeltrons know how to party, things get out of control and next thing you know there's a price on your head." Rixa said with a shrug. "But no I'm not here on a bounty or anything, I'm looking for my brother."

"What's he look like?" The Zeltron said after a few moments of carefully studying Rixa.

"Like me, with less facial hair and no tattoos." Rixa said. "Probably has a bit of an attitude."

He saw the spark of recognition in her eyes as she leaned in closer towards him. "Yeah Mr. Moody-Money-Bags. He's over there." She pointed to the far end of the bar by a booth.

There was a large man sitting in one of the booths by himself with his back to the door. Rixa couldn't tell for sure through the smoke that was hanging around in the room but the man could have been Tyran. Rixa gave the Zeltron a smile and got up from the bar and headed over to booth where the large man was seated to investigate. As he drew closer Rixa let a smile creep across his face, the man glanced over his shoulder quickly but it was enough for Rixa to make out the facial features he and his brother shared. He moved to the booth and sat across from Tyran.

Tyran Numeck gave his younger brother a look that would have scared away a battalion of Void Jumpers but Rixa sat down and adopted a calm expression and made sure to keep his hands on the table in front of him at all times.

"What are you doing here?" Tyran said blowing out a cloud of cigarra smoke into his brother's face.

"I thought that would have been obvious." Rixa said as he waved the cloud of smoke away. "I'm here because your wife asked me to look for you."

Tyran barked more than he laughed at his younger brother's words. "Why would Aru ask you to come looking for me? She's an ungrateful and jealous woman who doesn't give a damn about me."

Rixa noted the heavy scent of alcohol on the air and the seven empty glasses turned upside down on the table next to his brother.

"Come on you don't really think that do you?" Rixa said.

"She turned my son against me!" Tyran growled. "What kind of person does that?"

"Ijaat isn't against you." Rixa said. "In fact he thinks _you_ hate him, he's been very upset over you just up and disappearing like you did."

Tyran shrugged and took another drag of the cigarra in his large hand. "Good."

"Good?" Rixa was taken aback by the easiness his older brother seemed to have cut ties with everyone in his family. "You're wondering what kind of person can turn their son against their father, maybe you can tell me what kind of father is okay with letting their son sit and fester with idea of being hated by him?"

Despite all of the alcohol Tyran had consumed in the last day his eyes were crystal clear when they locked on Rixa's.

"I don't care what it makes me. I spent the last ten years of my life building a paradise for that kid just for him to tell me he thinks that leaving and finding a new father with his mother wouldn't be a bad idea." His voice was low but the anger and pain were as clear as day. "I don't care how upset Ijaat gets because it wont ever compare to how I've felt the last twenty-four hours."

"I agree with you that was wrong of Aru and Ijaat to say." Rixa said slowly after a few tense and awkward seconds. "I had a conversation with Aru before I went out looking for you, you guys have no idea how bad things have been on Mandalore since you left. The Yuuzhan Vong did more damage to the planet than we had thought. Most of the farms were salted to the point of being unusable, only a small portion of our farm was rendered barren by the attack but it was still significant enough to do a lot of damage to our profits. Bounty hunting hasn't been any better either." Rixa sighed. "What you've managed to create for your wife and son here is nothing short of a miracle and I want you to know I told Aru I wont let her bring Ijaat to Mandalore and if she did I'd bring him back here to you."

Tyran eyed his younger brother over. "Why are you doing this? Why are you helping Aru and siding with me at the same time? I thought we abandoned you and the rest, isn't that what you said we were doing ten years ago after calling us cowards?"

"Ten years is a long time _Tyr'ika._" Rixa said. "I became the one responsible for managing the family's income after you left. It isn't an easy job and after ten years I understand why you left. You didn't abandon us ten years ago and I'm not going to let you abandon Aru and Ijaat now so get your stuff together and let me take you home."

"I'm not going anywhere." Tyran said as he ordered another drink. "Not yet at least."

Rixa sighed and looked around the room. "Alright then which one is it?"

Tyran flicked his head in the direction behind Rixa. He looked over his shoulder and saw two Whiphids standing shoulder to shoulder next to a door.

"Right, more Whiphids." Rixa said. "Why can't you ever pick someone smaller and less dangerous than you for once?"

"Where's the challenge in that." Tyran said standing up and walking out from behind the bar. Rixa nodded his head and followed his older brother as he proceeded to instigate his seventh fight of the night.

**SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT, OFFICE OF ODAS ZISTRA, 40 ABY**

**SIX DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

"This is unacceptable." Zistra yelled at the top of his lungs.

Vitrix was sitting calmly on the other side of the the Senator's desk as the Gran slid a datapad to him.

"What is unacceptable?" Vitrix said as he scrolled through the datapad and seeing nothing troublesome.

"Are you blind?! Eight more people associated with Red-Fang have been killed in the last three days. I thought you had someone hunting Red-Fang or was that just another one of your lies?!"

"I wasn't aware that I had ever lied to you." Vitrix tossed the datapad back to the Gran senator.

"You told me that Red-Fang would make us rich, you told me Red-Fang had been lost during the War, you told me you had all of this under control! It doesn't appear that way."

"Did the operation not make you rich?" Vitrix asked casually. "And Red-Fang was lost during the War as were several of my other operatives and I had no reason to believe him to still be alive. Despite current events I do have control over the hunt for Red-Fang. My mercenary has only just accepted the contract, you can hardly expect immediate results even from a Mandalorian."

"A Mandalorian?" Zistra asked. "You could have told me that from the start." Zistra felt relieved. It wouldn't take a Mandalorian very long to track down the problematic Red-Fang. "How long has he been on the job?"

Vitrix cleared his throat. "Long enough. He is working as we speak to track down our rogue operative."

"How much does he know?"

"He knows Red-Fang is a terrorist and that is all he needs to know." Vitrix said. "But if he should discover anything, however unlikely that may be, I have taken steps to ensure he is eliminated before he becomes a problem."

"Once again you speak as if you have covered every angle of the situation but I can't help but wonder what you might be keeping from me."

"Remember you are the politician here not me." Vitrix said as he stood up to leave. "I should be the one suspicious of you."

"Please you're more of a politician than I am. Who knows how many back alley deals you have made to secure the total secrecy of your new precious interrogation facility. What ever happened to the young lieutenant who first put forth the idea of the Kaytares Installation in the first place?"

"He got too nosy I'm afraid." Vitrix said threateningly as he walked to the door. "He had to be removed from the equation."

Zistra paled at the threat. "If you lay one finger on me there will be question's raised. Every operation I've cleared will be looked into thoroughly by the Internal Investigative Branch. I don't think you'd want that to happen any more than I do."

Vitrix let out a cold laugh. "Odas my dear friend. What ever made you think I would lay a finger on you personally. I have plenty of people on my payroll who can make your disappearance seem like natural causes preventing the need for any kind of investigation into your operational history. But I'm sure you wont have to be removed from the equation, right?"

The Gran nodded nervously as he sat up straight in his high backed chair.

"Good." Vitrix hit the palm-scanner next to the door and disappeared an instant later.

Zistra let out a prolonged breath of air he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He hit the intercom on his desk.

"Zuda bring me something to drink." He said breathlessly. "Something potent, _very_ potent."

Dolvo lowered the shatter rifle he had trained on the back of the Gran senator's head as Vitrix exited the building without giving him the signal to fire.

"That was an easy ten-thousand credits." He said as he attached the rifle to the magnetic plate on the back of his armor.

He returned to the service elevator he had used to reach the floor of the office building that was level with good senator's office. It took him down to the eighty-eighth level of the hotel from which he climbed into a regular turbolift. His distinctive copper on grey colored armor, combined with his size and the large rifle on his back made the other occupants of the lift push away from him on each side. He had the center of the turbolift all to himself as the six others made a visible effort to avoid looking or even touching him. Most of them were humans but there was a Nautolan and a Togruta who were both more interested in their feet than they were in him.

His helmet chimed as he received an encrypted comm message.

"Dolvo." He said after accepting the call. His voice was perfectly insulated inside his helmet. None of the six others in the lift would ever have known he was having a conversation.

"As discussed, your fee will be deposited into the designated account within the hour." Vitrix said. "I'm quite sorry to have wasted your time like this."

"Ten-thousand credits isn't a waste of my time Colonel." Dolvo said. "Not that I really care but why didn't you give me the order to shoot him?"

"I just finally realized how afraid of me that old Gran is," Vitrix said. "He may yet still be useful to me and some of my plans so until the time he becomes useless I think I'll keep him alive."

"Yeah well when you make that decision you know how to reach me."

"Yes I do and before I let you go, do you have anything to report on the other job I have you contracted for?"

"I have an associate tailing him." Dolvo said. "I know where he is and what he is doing and so far it's nothing that concerns you, just family drama."

"Yes that must be the urgent business he told me he had to leave Coruscant to tend to." Vitrix said in a disinterested tone. "Very good, you'll keep me apprised of any crucial developments?"

"It's what you're paying me good money to do right?"

Vitrix laughed. "Yes I guess it is."

"Dolvo out." Dain rolled his eyes. He hated working for military types like Colonel Iman Vitrix.

They were men who hadn't stepped out onto an actual battlefield or looked down the scope of a rifle in decades and would rather pay to have their dirty work done rather than have the honor to do it themselves. But still those kind of men paid his bills and he was forced to deal with them on a more regular basis than he would have liked. The turbolift stopped on the ground floor of the hotel and the six occupants of the lift filed hurriedly filed out in front of him. Dain enjoyed the fear his physical presence instilled in lesser beings.

If there was any real difference between the Numeck and Dolvo Clans it was that. The Numecks had no desire to believe themselves to be above other people, Dain and his family however believed quite the opposite. He often wondered if maybe that had been the origin of the _Talparguur_, the ancient Blood-Hate, between the families. Even though Dain shared his father's views he didn't speak them openly, it was a very touchy subject on Mandalore and most people tended to avoid talking about it altogether.

As he walked to the spaceport he sent and encrypted text message to the contact he had trailing Rixa Numeck.

[ANYTHING TO REPORT?] The message was simple and he expected the reply to be just as equally simple. It was about five minutes later when he got the reply.

[I HAVE LOST HIM FOR THE MOMENT.]

Dain felt his heart skip a beat. Had Tyran realized his younger brother was being tailed and warned him?

[WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU LOST HIM?]

[I LOST CONTACT WITH HIM AFTER HE LANDED AT THE SPACEPORT. I'M WAITING OUTSIDE THE NUMECK APARTMENT OUT OF SIGHT AND WILL HAVE EYES ON HIM WHEN HE RETURNS. EVERYTHING IS UNDER CONTROL.]

"Now you sound like that Zabrak." Dain said in the seclusion of his helmet. [IT HAD BETTER BE UNDER CONTROL OR YOU WONT LIKE WHAT I DO TO YOU.]

Dain walked to the berth where his ship was located, an old Gladiator retrofitted with a navicomputer and a hyperdrive, unlike the standard model, and climbed into the pilot's chair. He activated the navicomputer and put in a course for Gyndine. There was a KDY shipyard there and it was close enough to Kuat that he could make a relatively short hyperspace jump should he need to follow Rixa at a moments notice. Kuat itself was locked down tight after the terrorist attack on one of it's orbiting space stations and he hoped that Gyndine and it's KDY shipyard weren't under similar lock down.

Dain took the Gladiator up into Coruscant's orbit. As the inky blackness of space filled the viewport he found himself happy he had sprung for the upgrades to his ship. Slaving his navicomputer to a hyperspace capable craft had been tedious at best. When the navicomputer confirmed the jump destination he found himself smiling as he pushed forward the hyperdrive control and the stars stretched out in front of him.

**KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**SIX DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Tyran gave the Nautolan across from him a scowl, causing the tentacle headed being to get up from the bench and head to the rear of the jail cell. Most of the thirteen occupants had been brought in during the fight Tyran had caused, Rixa included. He was standing at the front of the cell yelling at a guard who had given him a cheap shot with a stun baton while they had been herding the prisoners into the cell. Tyran's head was throbbing something awful, partly from the lump forming on the side of his forehead and mostly from the amount of booze he had consumed in the previous twenty-four hours.

He was well into his hang over. Rixa finished yelling at the guard and sat down next to him. He looked down at his older brother who had his head in his hands and was emitting a low groan as the pain set in. Rixa laughed sadistically.

"Booze wearing off?" He said through his laughter. "I thought you would have learned your lesson years ago, but no you're just as stubborn as dad was."

Tyran gave him a universal had gesture of displeasure.

"Aww don't be like that big brother." Rixa said as he patted Tyran on his back. "It'll only last the rest of the day."

Tyran sat up and fixed his bloodshot eyes on his younger brother. "You know I'm up for an eight fight today. I'm already in jail so they wont have to transport me anywhere after they come in and break it up."

Rixa clapped his hands together hard and Tyran winced and grabbed his forehead. Rixa laughed again.

"Yeah you look like you're in fighting shape."

"Go stick your head in a toilet or something." Tyran growled.

"Hey! You two want to shut up!" A burly human on the other side of the cell yelled at them.

"And if we don't?" Tyran said lifting his head enough to lock gazes with the human.

The burly man stood up and walked over to the two of them. Both Numeck brothers stood up at once and the burly human noticed just how big and burly the brothers were as well. He suddenly didn't look so confident but a guard appeared at the cell door.

"Tyran and Rixa Numeck?" He called.

Rixa stepped forward.

"Yeah?"

"You've been bailed out. You're free to go."

Tyran exchanged a curious glance with his brother. "We didn't even call anyone yet."

"You're bail was posted, I just have to tell you you're free to leave." The guard said. "It isn't my job to tell you who paid for your release."

The burly human looked at Tyran and Rixa. "You two got lucky."

Rixa feinted a lung at the burly man, who flinched and almost fell over backwards.

"Yeah you really had us shaking in our boots." Rixa said as he followed Tyran out of the cell.

The guard brought them to the front entrance of the jail and slid an identichip through a reader which opened the door that separated the main entrance from the housing area. Tyran and Rixa crossed the threshold and looked around the room and didn't immediately see anyone they recognized until a man in a dark uniform stood up near the exit.

"Dyir," Tyran sighed. "Should have figured Neada would be watching the Kay-Sec datafeeds."

"Your boss may be a real piece of work, but I have to admit she does come in handy." Rixa said as he watched Dyir walk over to them.

The look on his face wasn't one of happiness or relief to see them, but one of agitation. "I've got better things to do tonight than sit and wait in a detention center to bail you two out." Dyir said.

"I don't really care Dyir." Tyran said. "You weren't supposed to tell anyone where I was."

"Well I didn't tell anyone." Dyir said defensively.

"He's right. He kept his mouth shut no matter how many times I asked him where you were." Rixa said smugly. "I tracked you down based off your history of alcoholic binging and fighting when overly stressed."

Tyran raised his eyebrows briefly as he looked over his shoulder at his brother before looking back at Dyir. Rixa knew it was as close to a comment of praise that he was going to get from his older brother and held off boasting about his tracking skills any further.

"So what now Dyir?"

"I take you to the office to have a chat with Neada." Dyir said non too pleased. "She's even more aggravated by you than I am."

"Does Aru know where I am?"

"No, but she wont stop calling me."

Dyir took them outside and showed them to a pricey looking landspeeder than didn't look like it fit in with the other worn out speeders in the parking lot. The ride back to the ODS building was quiet and Tyran took the opportunity to rest his head against the cool transparisteel window on the passenger's side door. It felt good against his throbbing head. But the comfort was short lived as the speeder arrived outside the ODS building and maneuvered into the secure hangar. Tyran stumbled out of the speeder more than he climbed out of it, much to the delight of his younger brother who couldn't hide the grin on his face.

"What are you gawking at?" Dyir said as he climbed out the speeder and helped Tyran steady himself a little bit.

Rixa waved dismissively. "Just old memories is all."

Dyir shook his head. "You just going to stand there grinning like an idiot or are you going to help me get him inside?"

Tyran shoved Dyir away.

"I don't need any help. I can walk on my own."

Dyir raised his hands in a show of submission and took a few steps back from Tyran and waved him forward.

"After you then."

Tyran shook his head a few times and rose up on his feet determined to enter the building under his own power and not that of his brother or his friend. Dyir made sure that Rixa fell into step behind his brother before bring up the rear behind the Numeck brothers. Dyir's eyes never left the back of Rixa's head as they made their way from the empty bottom level of the building to the level that was home to the office of Neada Tash. The smell of brewing stimcaf hit Rixa like a loadlifter as they crossed the threshold into her lavish office.

"You two look like bantha fodder warmed over." The disgraced Hapan said as she looked up from the piece of flimsi she had been reading. It was once piece from a particularly large stack.

Tyran gave her little in the way of reply and walked in something that resembled a straight line to the caf pot in the corner of the room.

"Is this that strong Hapan blend?" He asked.

"I figured you might need something in the way of rejuvenation." Neada said as she turned back to the piece of flimsi. "Looks like I figured right."

Rixa took a seat on one of the sofas that littered the office without any invitation and got a dirty look from Dyir. Neada motioned for Tyran to sit down once he had downed a cup of the strong Hapan coffee.

"What's with the flimsi?" Dyir asked as he moved to stand beside her desk.

"It is a report, a very classified and potentially life threatening report that my intelligence officers have spent the last twenty-eight hours gathering."

"What's the report on?" Tyran said as he started on his second cup of coffee and took a seat next to, but further down on the sofa, his brother.

Rixa's eyes locked on to the flimsi stack. It had to be two inches thick.

"Red-Fang." He said flatly.

"Your brother is pretty quick." Neada said without looking up. "But I don't think being quick-minded is going to be enough to catch the man you are after if any of this is to be believed."

"Well lucky for you that I'm the one who has to hunt him down." Rixa said. "So if you would please hand me my intelligence report and I'll be on my merry way."

Neada set the piece of flimsi down on top of the large stack and secured the binders that held it all together. "Before I give this to you, I have to make something _absolutely_ clear. This information can never be traced back to this building or this office or even this planet. No one can ever know that I sanctioned the gathering of this information or that your brother asked to me to do it as a favor for him."

"Is it that classified?" Rixa asked dubiously.

"Yes." Neada said deadpan. "If this information finds it's way into the hands of the wrong people, like the Galactic Alliance Intelligence Department for instance, they will try to trace it back to it's origin, and since my office is not officially sanctioned by the Kuat Military and operates mostly under the jurisdiction of Kuat Drive Yards, my main priority is the protection of KDY and it's assets. If anyone from the Alliance ever tries to trace this information back to it's origin I have made it so that they will trace everything back to Tyran."

All three men fixed their gazes on her.

"What?" Tyran and Rixa said at once.

Neada inhaled deeply. "Tyran, as good an employee as he is, is a KDY asset. An expendable asset. I have arranged the gathering of this information so that it appears that Tyran was behind it. His clearance codes, authorization numbers...everything was used at one point or another in the gathering process."

"What happens if the information is traced back to him?" Rixa asked as Tyran sat back in the couch as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Neada shrugged. "For certain I cannot say, but I can tell you that it wont be good for him or his wife or son. If it's the government who traces the information back to him then he'll get a lengthy jail sentence; probably life for breaching highly classified military files, all of his assets will be seized. If the people who actually ran Red-Fang trace the information back to him, then it's a different story. They'll just kill him, Aru and Ijaat."

Tyran let out a loud sigh of disbelief as he rubbed at his temples.

"I can't believe this." He said more to himself than he did anyone in the room. "After all I've done for you, you can just go and do something like this without batting an eyelid?"

"I don't want to do this." Neada said genuinely upset. "I'm giving your brother the option of either taking this information and placing great risk upon you and your family, or leaving it here where it will be disposed of."

Dyir scratched at his chin. "Don't you ever do anything that doesn't get your brother neck deep in _osik_?"

Rixa looked incredulous. "You think I thought your boss was going to set my brother up like this? You think I'm enjoying the situation as it stands right now?!"

"Wait...wait." Tyran said raising his hands. "You said the people who actually ran Red-Fang, what does that mean?"

"Red-Fang is two things at once." Neada said. "It's a codename for an operative as well as a very off-the-books intelligence operation."

"Vitrix told me Red-Fang was a terrorist." Rixa said.

"Iman Vitrix?" Neada asked flipping through a few pages of flimsi in the Red-Fang Report.

"Yeah."

"Lieutenant Iman Vitrix, New Republic Intelligence, ran Red-Fang before and during the Yuuzhan Vong war. He used a highly trained special forces operative to infiltrate and destabilize the governments of systems that didn't fit in with the political views of the New Republic. Once that was done the New Republic would move it's people into the designated system and restore order and place the right people in the right places of power. Vitrix made quite a fortune off the Red-Fang op it seems. Several billion credits of emergency relief funds were skimmed off from each separate target his operative destabilized."

"In order for that kind of money to disappear without anyone looking to deep into it, your contractor must have some politicians in his pocket." Dyir said.

"Or he had a gun to their head." Tyran added. "I didn't think the New Republic played like that."

"I wouldn't be surprised if the Chief of State or the overall Senate had no idea this was going on." Neada tapped the report with her finger. "This Vitrix guy is slick. But whatever he's up to now it doesn't involve this Red-Fang character, the op went south during the War. The operative went missing. If this Vitrix called you for help, his operative might be back and settling a few scores."

The room fell silent after that and Neada rocked back and forth in her chair for a few moments before motioning to Dyir.

"Come on, these two have to have a conversation and I don't think we need to be here for it." She said rising from behind her desk and heading for the door.

A few minutes ticked by in silence after both she and Dyir had left the room. The Red-Fang report was still sitting on the desk within Rixa's reach but he couldn't bring himself to actually reach out and grab it. His eye's on the other hand couldn't move from the large stack of flimsi.

"Don't take it." Tyran said quietly. "Don't take that report."

"Tyran I have to take that report, I need the credits." Rixa said just as quietly.

"I can't let you take that intelligence. The danger to my family is too great to be ignored." Tyran looked at his younger brother. "I'd rather give you the credits you need."

Rixa snorted. "I'm not taking money from you."

"Why not? Taking my money is the only way to ensure a good outcome for both us." Tyran said not understanding why his brother was resistant to taking money from him. "Your family gets fed and your expenses will be paid for and my family's safety is guaranteed."

"I already accepted the job from Vitrix." Rixa said looking his brother in the eye. "I can't back out of it now and you know it. Mandalorians don't break a deal once they make it."

"You accepted a job knowing that you had no way of tracking down the target?"

"One job for the Galactic Alliance opens up the doors to more military contracts, which means more money for the Homestead than you can provide."

"You aren't working for the Galactic Alliance. You're working for a spook who has only his own interests in mind, who just so happens to be a Colonel in the Galactic Alliance's Intelligence Division." Tyran said. "They are two very different things. He'll probably shoot you dead before he pays you a single credit."

"Either way I have to take that report with me." Rixa said. "You just need to trust me."

"That's just it, I can't trust you. I've seen you in action and rescued more times than I can count on both hands. You are careless and reckless and I know that somehow you're going to mess this up and it'll be me and my family that pays the price."

"I'm not the same man I was ten years ago Tyran. I'm not burdened by the pain and memories of the Breaking like I was back then. I may not be up to your set of standards like Dyir, but I'm certainly better than I was. I know the concept is hard for you to understand but you're going to need to have some faith in me for once."

Tyran didn't like it. He had a good sense when it came to sniffing out situations that weren't going to end well. It went against his every instinct to sit still while Rixa grabbed the Red-Fang report from off the desk. A sensation began building in his stomach, it was foreboding as if not stopping Rixa from taking the report had just sealed some horrible fate for him and his family.

"I'm not going to mess this up" Rixa said looking at Tyran as he gripped the flimsi report in both his hands. "I can't afford to."

"Just so we're clear little brother. If you mess this up and I end up in prison and my wife and son wind up on the streets with absolutely nothing. There wont be a place you will be able to hide from me. No matter how deep or dark a hole they throw me I will crawl my way out of it and hunt you down like the Supercommando I used to be. When I find you there wont be any conversations, no please for forgiveness. I'm just going to simply kill you."

Rixa stared at his brother. Tyran never made idle threats or hollow promises. If he said he was going to kill then he would do exactly that.

"I wouldn't expect anything less from you." To Tyran's bewilderment a smile crossed his younger brother's face. "So if you're done threatening me I still have to take you home to your wife, son and that peach of a little girl staying with you."

"Fine but that report and the deal attached to it does not get mentioned in front of Aru or Ijaat."

"I think that would be best for both our sakes."

Tyran tried not to think about how his wife would react if she found out about the arrangement that came along with the Red-Fan report. There would be a very real possibility that he would have to defend his employer from his wife and Aru Numeck was a lot more dangerous than a half-dozen Hapan Commandos.

"Yeah it would."


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE:**

**KDY SHIPYARD, GYNDINE, 40 ABY**

**SIX DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Dain ordered himself another drink. Rixa Numeck appeared to be in no real rush to leave Kuat and Gyndine was the perfect place to keep an eye on him from. The contact he had trailing the younger Numeck brother was due to report in soon with an update, but until then Dain had ten-thousand credits more than he had the previous day and he was intent on spending as much of them on the finest ale that the rest station in the KDY orbital shipyard had in stock.

A human waitress appeared with a glass of fine Corellian Brandy that was five hundred credits per bottle. Dain had decided that with everything going on between the Galactic Alliance and Corellia these days that Corellian booze would become hard to find. The two forces were a path that would inevitably lead them to war.

Corellian's never backed down from a fight, never gave in to people who tried to beat them into submission. The Galactic Alliance couldn't allow itself to be seen as weak as the galaxy's governing body and thus would have to use a show of military force to try and bring Corellia to heel. It wouldn't work though, at least not without thousands of people dying in the process.

Dain laughed in amusement as he downed the Corellian Brandy. It was amazing at how quickly things could go sour, just ten years prior the entire galaxy had been united by the threat posed by the Yuuzhan Vong and now here they were getting ready to tear each other apart. It was the same old song and dance and it kept men like him well paid and in business. He continued to think about the way the galaxy worked for five more minutes before his datapad began to chirp. He pulled it from his pocket and swallowed the rest of his drink before activating it.

There was a line of text on the screen [STILL HAVEN'T RE-ESTABLISHED CONTACT WITH THE TARGET.]

Dain shook his head. [WHY NOT?]

[I AM STILL WAITING OUTSIDE HIS BROTHER'S HOUSE. WHEN HE SHOWS UP I WILL INFORM YOU.]

Dain practically jumped out of his seat and began to type furiously. [ARE YOU MAD? IF YOU THINK TYRAN NUMECK OR ARU NUMECK WONT NOTICE SOMEONE STANDING OUTSIDE THEIR HOUSE WATCHING IT YOU'RE A BIGGER FOOL THAN I THOUGHT YOU WERE.]

[I AM NO FOOL AND THEY WON'T SEE ME UNLESS I WANT THEM TO. IF NOTHING CHANGES IN THE NEXT HOUR OR SO I'LL SEND YOU A MESSAGE AND RELOCATE TO THE SPACEPORT AND KEEP AN EYE ON HIS SHIP.]

"If he hasn't already left!" Dain growled at his datapad's screen. [IF HIS SHIP ISNT THERE YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUST GO AND SIGN YOUR DEATH WARRANT. YOU UNDERSTAND ME?]

[IT WILL STILL BE THERE. JUST TRUST ME.]

Dain growled again and turned off his datapad and tucked it away into his belt and ordered another glass of the expensive Brandy and told the waitress to just bring him the bottle when she came back. Trust was overrated. Trust got you killed. He poured himself a large glass of Corellian Brandy and drank it in one gulp.

"Wow, that's impressive." A female voice said from behind him.

Dain put the glass down and looked over his shoulder. A pale skinned human woman in her late twenties was leaning over the booth he was sitting in.

He shrugged as he poured himself another glass. "Not really."

The woman laughed. "You're a Mandalorian right?" She asked as she circled around the booth and took a seat in front of him.

Dain studied her for a moment taking in ever facet of her appearance. She walked with a sense of entitlement which suggested wealth or nobility, she was startlingly attractive with flame red hair and emerald green eyes. Her clothing however was very nondescript, The kind that you wore when you were trying to go unnoticed. Her eyes held a fierceness that suggested intelligence on a high scale and her overall posture was ramrod straight. The kind you got from being in the military.

_Hapan._ His mind said in the back of his head.

"Yeah I'm a Mandalorian." Dain said sensing a potential job offer coming his way. Even though he was working for someone who was practically throwing money at him for seemingly useless tasks, having more income coming in didn't hurt anything. "You're a Hapan Commando right?"

He noticed the immediate spark of alertness and shock on her face. It disappeared quicker than it had arrived though and the woman recovered quickly. "I am a Hapan yes but what makes you think I'm a commando?"

Dain laughed. "I think you know you're probably the most attractive female in this room, you walk like you're used to getting everything and anything you want and you have the posture of a lifelong soldier, but yet here you are wearing clothing that even one of the miscreants out in the lower levels of Coruscant wouldn't even wear."

The woman looked down at her appearance as if thinking about what he was saying and Dain decided to continue. "It makes me believe you're a special forces operator, what you're doing and who you're after I don't know, but I can tell you this: changing your clothing alone wont help you to blend in. You're target is going to see you coming from a thousand parsecs away unless you change every facet of your being."

"How should I do that?" The woman asked with a half-smile.

"Change your hair color, rub some dirt on your face, walk less like a woman with stature and more like a bum. Do whatever it takes to blend in with your target's surroundings and they won't ever see you coming."

"Maybe I could just hire you to kill my target for me."

"You could do that." Dain agreed. "My specialty is assassinations, but when it comes to writing up your after-action report and you have to have all the fine details of the kill, what would you write up? Plus I don't take jobs from soldiers who are to lazy or inept to pull them off. Go get yourself killed first then I'll take the job from your superior."

To Dain's bewilderment the woman's half smile turned into a full smile as she sat back and stared at him.

"You're not very soft spoken are you?"

Dain shook his head. "I don't know any Mandalorian that is."

"I'm Talisa." She said and extended her hand across the table.

Dain stared at it and noted that she hadn't offered her last name. He reached across the table and shook her hand and was surprised by the strength of her grip. "Dain."

"Well Dain, you're a Mandalorian. A mercenary extraordinaire. You are always looking for jobs to pay the bills and I'm looking to hire someone to do a few things for me. I'd like to hire you and your services."

"Like I said before I'm not going to hunt down and kill your target just so you can go and claim credit for it later. Unlike a lot of other Mandos I take pride in my body count."

"I'm sure you do." Talisa said. "But I don't need you to kill anyone."

"Then what do you want with me?"

Talisa shrugged. "The trip from Hapes to Gyndine was a long one and I've still got some traveling to do before I reach my destination."

"Which is?"

"Kuat."

"There's a lot of interesting people on Kuat." Dain said wondering why the planet was starting to figure into his daily routine at an increasing rate.

"Yes, but I'm only after one in particular."

"I'm failing to see how this pertains to me?"

Talisa smiled larger still and slid a swipecard across the table to him. He picked it up and turned it over in his hand a few times before shrugging.

"What's this for?"

"It's what I want to pay you for."

Dain shook his head. "Look I don't really have time for games so why don't you just get to the point."

"That's the key to my room." Talisa said as she got up from the booth. "I'll be on the station for the night, you're a smart man so I know you can figure out what I want."

She walked over to the turbolifts and disappeared a few moments later. Dain continued to flip the card over in his hand and poured himself another drink. He laughed as he thought about the fact that he had just been propositioned by a Hapan. The offer was tempting, he'd been paid a lot of money over the years to do a lot of different things but never what she was asking of him.

He didn't have a wife or girlfriend or anything like that waiting for him. He didn't even really have a home to go back to, he spent most of his time in places like the rest station, or the less than comfortable palaces of different Hutts or crime lords who needed his particular set of skills. There wasn't anyway that Talisa was going to be able to match the payments he received from those crime lords, and she definitely wasn't going to be able to match the careless spending of Iman Vitrix.

He finished his drink and headed for the turbolifts. He may not get a lot of money out of this arrangement, but either way you put it credits were credits. There was that fact and the additional fact that the proposition the Hapan woman had given him was a lot better that what he planned to do for the rest of the day. Yes Dain did think of himself as a smart man and felt like a smart man as he hit the call button on the turbolift and looked at the swipecard and the room number printed on it.

**KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**SIX DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Tyran and Rixa walked in silence down the pedwalk a few blocks to Tyran's apartment. Tyran was still bothered by the decision his brother had made in taking the Red-Fang report. That was very volatile intelligence that had the potential to get not only Tyran into a deep well of problems, but his wife and son as well. Every cell in Tyran's body begged him to reach out and knock Rixa unconscious and take and destroy the Red-Fang report. But he couldn't do it. Tyran decided that he really did have to learn to trust others outside of the small inner circle he had created for himself. A small circle that his younger brother was not included in.

Rixa let out a half sigh and looked at his older brother. "Not that it's any of my business, but if all Aru wants you to do is spend more time with your son why don't the two of you just trade jobs for a while."

"What?" Tyran said.

"You take over Aru's job and let Aru take over your job." Rixa said. "It might also help calm the waters between the two of you. Let her know that you just don't stand around staring at a beautiful Hapan woman all day."

"I could do that but Aru and Neada aren't exactly friends."

"All the more reason to let her be your boss's bodyguard for a while." Rixa said. "You aren't supposed to become friendly with your charge Tyran. That's bodyguarding one-oh-one."

"Well after doing it for ten years it just kind of happens."

"Yeah, you know about her and Dyir right?"

Tyran nodded. "Yeah I've know for a while now. I've been meaning to talk to Dyir about it but just haven't gotten around to doing so yet."

"Too busy drinking?"

Tyran glared at Rixa and stared back out ahead of him as his apartment drew closer. Fear began to build at the base of his spine and worked it's way up to his neck as the building became ever larger with each footstep.

"Tell me how mad Aru is."

"Like on a one–ten scale?"

Tyran nodded slowly. "One being a disturbed nerf and ten being an enraged Krayt dragon."

"I think she was at Krayt dragon level before I showed up, but I think I calmed her down to about an upset Jabiim hunting wasp."

Tyran grunted. "What's that about a five or six?"

"Somewhere in there." Rixa said. "Just don't worry about it, just go in there and accept whatever punishment she decides you deserve and move on from there, more importantly make peace with your son."

"You always were the sentimental one." Tyran said.

"Yeah I know, that's why _Buir_ left you the _Tal'galaar_ and his crushgaunts. You're the aggressive one." Rixa said. His voice was thick with remembrance. "Where is the _Tal'galaar_ anyway?"

"In a dedicated berth at the spaceport." Tyran said. "She get's proper maintenance and regular overhauls which I oversee. She's in good shape."

Rixa nodded his head as they came to a stop at Tyran's door. High pitched tweedling came out of the shadows as Jaya's R2 unit wheeled itself out of the darkness over to them.

"Rusty?" Tyran said as he looked over at his brother.

"Aw hell I forgot all about the little guy." Rixa said scratching at the back of his head. "I told him to come here when I landed yesterday afternoon and wait for me, but after talking with Dyir and Aru he just got pushed aside."

The droid tweedled in an angry tone and Rixa held up his hands in defense.

"Hey I'm sorry I left you out here..."

More angry tweedling.

"I'm sorry it rained while you were waiting..."

Even more angry tweedling. Tyran had started smiling as he stood back and watched Rixa argue with the small droid and started to openly laugh when the small droid extended it's shocking arm and zapped Rixa in the leg with it.

"Wow I've never seen a droid that angry with someone before." Tyran said after he had finished laughing.

Rixa was massaging his thigh and giving Tyran a rather unpleasant look.

"This is going to be nothing compared to how angry Jaya is going to be when this droid spins the story so it looks like I'm the forgetful _di'kut._"

Tyran didn't have time to respond. The door slid open in front of them and both men looked at Aru with surprised faces. Her eyes settled on Tyran for a few seconds before she flung herself on him and wrapped him in a vice-like hug.

"Where the hell have you been!" She said trying to sound angry but the relief in her voice washed out any anger she may have had.

Tyran was caught off guard by her hug and didn't know what to say at first.

"I've been around." He said slowly.

She actually laughed as she released him and gave Rixa a hug as well.

"Where did you find him? What happened?"

"In a bar, we got arrested and your boss bailed us out."

"You got arrested?!"

"I started a bar fight."

"_Fights,_ at least seven of them from what I counted."

Aru turned back to Tyran. "You started seven bar fights?"

"I had some issues I needed to work through," he said sheepishly. "It just so happened I worked them out on the faces of a few Whiphids."

"I'm sorry." Aru said giving him another hug. "But if you ever just take off an disappear like that again, I'm going to kill you."

Tyran laughed tiredly. "I believe you."

Aru stepped back inside the apartment and motioned for them to come in. Tyran had dropped into combat zones under heavy enemy fire, he had faced the most monstrous enemy combatants you could ever imagine and he could never recall being as nervous as he was when he walked into his own home. It was empty though. No one was seated at the giant worshyr wood table, the living room was empty and the large vidscreen was off. He looked around the spacious interior of the apartment while Rixa and his still angry R2 unit entered the apartment.

"Where is Ijaat?" He asked.

"I finally managed to get him to fall asleep a few hours ago." Aru said.

Tyran nodded and pointed in the direction of their bedroom. "It's been a long day so I'm just going to go to bed."

Aru didn't try to stop him as he walked off and looked back to Rixa.

"Thank you."

Rixa shrugged. "It worked out for both of us. You got your husband and I got my intel. Regardless though we're family and your sister would have skinned me alive if she found out you asked me for help and I said no."

Aru smiled tiredly and nodded her head. "I would have called her if you said no." She looked around the empty living room. "When are you leaving."

"Probably tomorrow." Rixa said.

"Well you can stay here for the rest of the night if you want. We'll give you a ride to the spaceport tomorrow morning."

Rixa smiled. "Yeah that'd be fine."

"Good, I'll go get you some blankets and pillows. Make yourself comfortable on the couch."

Rixa did as instructed while Aru walked off to another part of the apartment. Rusty rolled up next to the couch and tweedled twice.

"I forgive you for shocking me, but if you ever do it again I'm going to sell you for scrap." Rixa said honestly as he patted the droid on the top of it's dome shaped cranium.

Aru came back in a presented him with a soft blanket and a pillow and told him to have a good night before she disappeared around the same corner Tyran had. Of all the things Rixa had thought himself as over the years a marriage councilor had never been one of them. He stretched himself out on the couch and felt rather satisfied with the results of his efforts.

Aru walked into the master bedroom and found Tyran sitting on his side of the bed pulling off his shirt. She stopped when she noticed all the bruises that had formed along his back and ribcage. He didn't seem to be in any physical pain or hindered in anyway by the bruises, but then again Tyran had always had an extremely high pain tolerance. He tossed the shirt on the floor and fell over onto the bed and let out a tired and disgruntled sigh. Aru changed into her own night clothes before climbing into bed next to her husband and wrapped her arm around his bruised and battered muscular frame.

"It was good to see Rixa again." She said quietly.

Tyran just grunted.

"You know I had every intention of leaving you after you disappeared. I was beyond being angry or furious." She continued. "Ijaat is the only reason I didn't, he begged and pleaded with me to stay here and wait for you to come back and for some reason I couldn't say no to him. For one reason or another I called your brother and asked him to go looking for you. When he got here he had no problem speaking his mind after I told him everything that had happened. He took your side and told me that he didn't think you were totally in the wrong and that I never really looked at things from your point of view."

Tyran remained silent and Aru didn't know if he was actually listening or not but she knew he was awake.

"I never stopped and asked myself how spending so much time away from your family might be effecting you. I just assumed you enjoyed being in the company of Neada Tash for all these years and that we had become an afterthought. Instead of trying to get to the heart of the problem and work it out all I've been doing is making it worse. I didn't have to start in on you every time you walked through the door at the end of the day, but I did."

Tyran rolled over and looked at her. "Is this some type of apology?"

Aru blinked and swallowed. "I'm not going to apologize for anything I've said or done in the last few days. I am sorry that they hurt you but I'm not sorry for saying them, whether you like it or not they are the truth."

"You still think I'm a bad father?"

"Yes." Aru said after a few moments. "But I know you can change that, you're ten times the man your own father was so I know you have the ability to be a good father, you just have to make the time to become one."

Tyran shut his eyes and groaned. "Believe me when I say that I would love to spend every moment of the day with Ijaat, but you've been numbed to the dangers of the world by spending all of your time in classrooms and chillcream parlors. I don't just stand around in Neada's office all day staring at her while she does paperwork. She is every bit the soldier we are and thus likes to have an active hand in everything her department does. Hapans are dangerous at the best of times, but when you get one who has a grudge and has no problem sending death-squad after death-squad, they become something more than dangerous."

"I understand the danger she is in, it's why she pays us so much to keep her and her daughter safe, but I fail to see why you need to be with her ninety-nine percent of the week."

Tyran shook his head and couldn't believe he was about to suggest what he was about to suggest. "Look you want me to spend more time with Ijaat right? You want to see things from my point of view right?"

Aru nodded.

"Then how about we trade jobs for a while?" Tyran said actually taking his brother's advice which went counter to his every instinct. "You protect Neada and I protect Vyndra, and by extension spend some quality time with Ijaat."

Aru laughed at him. "Are you serious?"

"Yes, if it helps ease your concerns about my parenting abilities then yes I am very serious."

Aru nodded. "Fine, I'll finish out this month and we can switch jobs before the field trip to the KDY museum. If you can make it through that then we'll see about getting you into the regular school routine."

"I can't just show up?"

"No you have to get cleared by the city school board first, but I'm sure Neada can get Truan to grease the wheels a little if she needs to."

"I'll set things up with Neada tomorrow." Tyran said as he wrapped his wife up in his tree-trunk-like arms and pulled her close to him. He gave her a kiss and shut his eyes. "Just promise me _you_ wont kill her."

Aru kissed him back and smiled. "I'll try to be a good girl."

**KDY ORBITAL SHIPYARD, GYNDINE, 40 ABY**

**SIX DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Dain was truly relaxed as any man could ever hope to be. He was laying in a warm bed with a beautiful woman who had paid him rather well for his company that night, which was quite the switch in his experience. The Hapan woman named Talisa was nestled against his muscular chest under the warmth provided by the blankets covering their bare bodies. She was breathing heavily as one did when in a deep sleep. Her flame red hair was matted to her neck with sweat from the events that had taken place over the last five hours.

The expensive bottle of Corellian Brandy was on a night stand next to the bed, drained of every drop of alcohol it had contained. Talisa had surprised him with her ability to hold her alcohol, she would have made a decent Mandalorian. Dain, still in a stupor induced by too much Brandy and an amazing night with a woman he would most likely never see again, allowed himself to think about the kind of woman he would have settled down with on Mandalore if he hadn't been burdened by the name of Dolvo.

He imagined his ideal woman would have been very similar to the woman he was holding in his arms at that very moment. She had revealed to him facts about her personal life that she probably wouldn't have it hadn't been for the drinks she had. It turned out that her name was Talisa Raldi and she was indeed a Hapan Special Forces operative in charge of an assassination squad bound for Kuat. She wouldn't reveal her target to him just that it was someone who had crossed the newly appointed Director of Special Operations some years ago.

He hadn't pressed her about her target, he'd had other things on his mind at the time, but now that he wasn't preoccupied he found himself wondering who she was being sent to assassinate. The thought was pushed from his mind as a soft buzzing sound emitted up from the floor. Dain sighed irritably as he tried to gently move himself out from under the soft weight of the Hapan assassin sleeping on top of him and reached down to grab his combat fatigues. His datapad was humming away in one of his many pockets. He grabbed the device and activated it to read a line of text.

[I HAVE REAQUIRED RIXA NUMECK.]

Dain stared at the screen in a mix of relief and disgruntlement. As much as he had wanted to hear that particular news he hadn't really wanted to be disturbed at this particular moment.

[GOOD. ALERT ME AS SOON AS HE LEAVES HIS POSITION AND TO WHATEVER HIS NEW DESTINATION MIGHT BE.] He typed in before shutting the device off instead of just putting it on standby.

"Was that your wife?" Talisa's groggy voice echoed up from behind him.

"Don't have one." Dain said dropping the datapad to the floor again as he laid back down on the bed.

"Girlfriend?" Talisa asked as she curled up next to him once more.

Dain shook his head. "Don't have one of those either."

Talisa grinned. "Give me you're commlink."

Dain gave her a curious look for a few moments before something in her eyes made him comply with her request. He reached back down for his fatigues and produced his commlink. She took it in her hands and pressed a series of buttons before handing it back to him.

"There, now you can contact me whenever you want to...get together."

She reached up and pulled his face to hers and kissed him before pulling away and started getting dressed.

"Time to go?"

"I've got an hour or so before my team leaves for Kuat." She said as she pulled on her pants. "Where are you headed after this?"

"I'm just doing some observation work for the government, wherever my target goes I go, or at least somewhere nearby."

"Where is you're target now?"

"Kuat."

"Small galaxy." Talisa laughed.

"Very small." Dain agreed. "I have an associate tailing my target actually, I'm no more than a hyperspace jump away from the actual location just in case I need to perform the lethal obligations of my contract."

"Does the government pay well for that kind of work?"

"I'm pretty sure the man I'm working for is part of the government, but I don't think I'm actually working for the government." Dain said. "If you get what I mean, but this guy pays ridiculously well."

Talisa gestured to the empty bottle of Corellian Brandy. "He must if you bought an entire bottle of that stuff."

Dain nodded as she stood up and pulled on her shirt. Dain suddenly didn't want her to go anywhere and looked at the commlink in his hand and pressed a button. Talisa reached into her pocket and pulled out her own commlink.

"Go." She said.

"You wanna get together?"

She smiled as Dain's voice echoed out from the commlink and hit her ears from behind. She turned around and beamed at him.

"The last few hours wasn't enough?"

"One for the road?"

"If I miss my flight I'm going to be in some serious trouble." Her tone was playful and he voice didn't carry and kind of fear of reprisals from her commanding officers.

"I'm sure you can handle it."

She laughed as he reached over the side of the bed and pulled her back down onto it. They engage in a kiss that became more passionate by the second and it was to soon before she had forgotten about her scheduled flight altogether.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX:**

**KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**SEVEN DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION.**

Rixa couldn't help but feel as if he was being watched as he woke from his sleep. The couch he had spent the night on had been one of the most comfortable couches he'd ever encountered. No doubt it was made from some expensive fabric and imported cushioning that was galaxies out of his pay grade. He rolled onto his back and slowly opened his eyes. The faces of two small children were peering over the back of the couch and looking down at him as if they were studying some weird life-form they had never encountered before.

"It's not polite to stare you know." Rixa said through a large yawn.

"We know." Vyndra said. "But we aren't staring, we're observing."

Rixa laughed and sat up. He had a feeling that the little girl was going to be quite the handful when she was older.

"Why exactly are you observing me?" He asked.

"We don't have anything else to do." Vyndra said honestly.

Rixa grinned and nodded his head at Ijaat. "I bet she wears the pants in your relationship."

The boy seemed caught off guard by the statement but didn't get around to giving a response before his mother entered the living room.

"Ijaat, Vyndra leave Rixa alone and come eat you're breakfast." Aru said patiently. "We have to leave for school in thirty minutes."

Aru smiled at Rixa as the two children scurried away from the couch and climbed into their seats at the table. Rixa gave her a small wave as he swung his legs off the couch and ran his fingers through his hair. It took him a few moments to recognize the smell of brewing caf and cooking nerf sausages as his system slowly restarted for a new day. He glanced over his shoulder and only saw his sister-in-law, nephew and the little girl who lived with them sitting around the table.

But no Tyran.

Rixa caught Aru's eye and gave her a subtle shrug. She understood him and mouthed one word: sleeping, while the two children took their seats at the table. Rixa nodded and stood up off the couch and stretched. Ijaat was staring at him again from the table. His gaze was unsettling and Rixa found himself unable to meet it for more than a few seconds before he had to look away. It was as if the boy was looking straight through him, investigating and memorizing what he saw. He rubbed his arms to make the small bumps that had suddenly sprung up go away and walked to the kitchen.

"Caf?" Aru asked him.

"Sure." He said taking a seat next to Ijaat. He figured the boy would actually be less inclined to stare at him if they were shoulder to shoulder instead of being across from each other. But his plan failed. Ijaat's gaze was just as fixed as ever and Rixa couldn't stand it anymore.

"What?" He asked casually as Aru handed him a cup of lightly-sweetened caf.

"Did you find my dad?" Ijaat asked.

Rixa blinked furiously. Hadn't Aru told him that Tyran was sleeping in their bedroom up the hall? Aru was standing behind Rixa and he glanced up at her to get a subtle head shake from her. She was telling him to say no. Rixa cocked his head slightly to the side confused. Rixa gave him the barest of winks and walked over to Vyndra and began putting the girls deep-red hair into the required tail for school. Rixa took a sip of his caf and looked at his nephew.

"Not yet. But I have a few good leads."

Ijaat deflated in his chair and began pushing around one of the nerf sausages on his plate with his fork. Rixa felt his neck heat up, as if he was being watched, and turned his head and found the source of the sudden sensation. Vyndra was glaring at him from where she was standing while Aru fixed her hair. It astounded him that a ten year old girl could be so intimidating. Rixa looked back at Ijaat and patted him on the back.

"Don't worry, It'll all work out for the best. I'm sure of it."

"Whatever." Ijaat grumbled miserably.

Rixa sighed. "Aru can I talk to you outside for a moment." He said standing up from the table. "Outside."

Aru patted Vyndra on her head and shooed her along and followed Rixa to the door. When the door slid shut behind them Rixa fixed her with the same intimidating gaze Tyran used to move people out of his way. The effect Rixa's gaze had wasn't as potent as Tyran's, it had something to do with Rixa's deep-blue colored eyes and Tyran's icy-blue eyes.

"Look I know you want to know what I'm up to, but trust me." Aru said raising her hands. "I've got a plan here and I just need you to go with it for a few more minutes until Neada calls."

Rixa furrowed his brow. "What do you have up your sleeve?"

"I swallowed my pride and asked Neada for a favor." Aru said bitterly. "I asked her to give Tyran three weeks off but I told her to make it seem like a punishment. She's going to call soon and tell him that his day of drinking just got him a suspension for dereliction of duty and breach of his contract."

Rixa laughed. "You're serious?"

Aru nodded. "Yep and Ijaat won't be going to school today, I already called and informed them that he's come down with a bad cold and is going to miss a few days."

"Thus forcing your husband to spend some time with your son."

"Exactly." Aru said with a smug smile on her face.

"When did you think this up?"

"In the middle of the night."

"I like it." Rixa said.

"Good, I'm going to need you to play along for a little while."

Rixa nodded. "Sure what do you need?"

"When I tell Ijaat that he isn't going to school today because I think he needs to relax and get some rest, I want you to ask him if he wants to help you search for Tyran."

"No problem."

"Great. When Neada calls I'll take the commlink in to Tyran and when he's done talking I'll ask him what she wanted. He'll probably make up some excuse and try to get me out of the room. I'll leave and send Ijaat into our room to get something for me before we leave."

"He discovers Tyran, there's a big happy moment and then you tell Tyran that Ijaat is going to be staying at home with him for a few days. Correct?"

"You're not the muscle headed brute that you appear to be." Aru said with a smile as she turned and hit the palm scanner on the door.

"I'm getting tired of people confusing me with Tyran." Rixa said with a smile and getting a quick laugh from Aru as they walked back into the room.

They both took seats at the table and assumed their sabaac faces. Still, having to watch Ijaat push his food around with his fork was hard to watch. Vyndra was still glaring at him darkly as she chewed on her food. Aru took her time as she made herself a cup of caf and moved back to the table to sit next to her son. She ran her fingers through his hair a few times until he pushed her hand away in an agitated fashion.

"Ijaat, you're going to stay home for the next few days alright?"

"Why?" Ijaat asked.

"Well with everything going on with your father I just think you need some time to relax. I'll bring your homework to you tonight so you won't fall too far behind."

"I'm going to be here by myself?" Ijaat said with a tinge of nervousness to his voice.

"No, Rixa will be here today. I'll see about arranging something so we can get someone to stay home with you while I'm gone."

Ijaat glanced up at Rixa. "Are you sure about this?"

Rixa grunted. "Don't think I'm up to the job?"

"Rixa is one of the best soldiers I know, even better than Kovi Lasar and the others on Team-Sigma." Aru said. "He'll keep you safe."

She patted Ijaat on his head just as her commlink began to chirp. She excused herself and walked away from the table to take the call. Rixa bumped his nephew's elbow with his own and lowered his voice to a conspiratory tone.

"Hey, if you want we can go out and look for your dad some more. There are a few more places I didn't get a chance to look in last night."

"My mom won't like that." Ijaat said.

"Your mother doesn't have to know anything." Rixa said giving Ijaat a wink.

Ijaat seemed to consider the offer and nodded slightly and adopted a somewhat more positive expression than the dark one that had covered his face moments earlier.

Tyran growled into his pillow as his eyelids opened up for the day. The headache he had suffered from in the jail cell was nothing compared to the relentless pounding in his temples he was experiencing now. He was acutely aware of the aches and pains assaulting his body in the forms of bruises and small cut sustained in his night, or more accurately an entire day, of drinking and fighting in the unsavory parts of Kuat City. He could hear Aru already, grinning broadly as she told him that he got no less than he deserved, that he was too old to be going out and getting drunk and starting bar fights.

He nodded and told the imaginary voice of his wife the customary 'yes dear, I know was wrong dear' and sat up in the bed. As if she had known she was thinking about her Aru walked through the doorway with a commlink pressed to her ear. She was nodding her head and then looked at Tyran and extended her arm towards him, holding the commlink as if it were a lethal weapon.

"For you." She said simply.

Tyran took the commlink and felt a mounting sense of dread when Aru crossed her arms and remained at the foot of the bed as he pressed the commlink to his ear.

"Hello?" He said trying to not sound groggy.

"Tyran, I wanted to let you know before you came to the office this morning. Senator Stav found out about your arrest and ordered me to place you on a three week suspension for dereliction of duty as well as breaching your contract." Neada said.

Tyran's eyes went wide as he listened to the voice of his employer. "I understand." He tried to keep his voice level as if there wasn't anything wrong to avoid worrying Aru.

"When your suspension is up you will be giving a formal hearing in front of the disciplinary board to find out whether or not your contract is to be terminated."

Tyran shut his eyes and silently swore at himself. "Yes ma'am."

The conversation ended and Tyran was left reeling. He handed the commlink back to his wife and gave her smile.

"So?" Aru said. "What did she want?"

"She told me to take today off." Tyran said. It was a version of the truth, he would be taking the day off, as well as the next twenty-two days.

"Really?" Aru said giving him a suspicious look. "Neada called this early in the morning to tell you to take the day off?"

Tyran nodded. "Yep, she sure did."

Aru shrugged and walked out of the room. "Get something for dinner, I think it's about time you cooked for once."

Tyran forced a grin. "Do I get lunch money?"

Aru laughed at him as she hit the palm scanner on the door and walked back out into the main section of the apartment. When she was gone Tyran put his head in his hands. If he lost his contract with Truan Stav then he didn't know what he would do. He wasn't going back to Mandalore, that wasn't an option for him. There were a lot of politicians and wealthy business people who would need the level of protection he provided, maybe he'd just move on to the next person who needed help fending off some kind of death threat or assassination order.

He couldn't help but wonder if his wife and son would want to come with him. Aru wasn't very fond of Kuat, but she was very fond of Vyndra. Ijaat had known no other place besides the confines of Kuat City's upper reaches. Would he be moving on to a new occupation on his own? Dyir certainly wouldn't come with him this time, he had built quite the life for himself in the last ten years. Tyran punched the bed in frustration. He had really messed up this time.

He pulled himself out of the bed and changed into a pair of cargo pants and a black durafab t-shirt. There was no point in getting over dressed if he wasn't going to be working today, or possibly ever again.

Aru gave Rixa a subtle thumbs up as she waled to the front of the living and called to Vyndra. She made a show of searching her person and then looked at Ijaat.

"Ijaat can you get my commlink? I left it on my dresser."

Ijaat nodded slowly and climbed down from his seat at the table and hurried off towards his parents bedroom. Rixa gave Aru a smiling glance as he sipped at his caf an she returned with a smile of her own. Vyndra glanced between the two of them curiously.

"Why are the two of you smiling at each other."

"Mind your business short-stuff." Rixa said.

"Don't call me short stuff!" Vyndra said heatedly.

"Vyndra be polite." Aru said with a short laugh as she patted the young girl on her back.

"But he started it."

"So you be the bigger person and let it go."

Vyndra looked at Rixa and raised her chin in a mannerism that must have been completely Hapan in nature.

"Aru is right, I shouldn't let a low-level soldier like you get under my skin." Rixa sputtered as he choked on his caf, Vyndra gave her head a snobby shake. "I'm of superior stature and should act with dignity and not fall to your barbaric level." Vyndra finished and spun on her heel and walked to the door.

Aru was still looking at Rixa with an air of astonishment. The little girl had definitely adopted most of her mother's pureblooded Hapan traits.

"Do all ten year olds on this planet know how to talk like that?" Rixa asked as he wiped caf from his chin.

Vyndra grunted in the doorway as she waited for her bodyguard, who appeared to be in no real rush to leave just yet. "Don't act surprised that I know more words than you do. I'm educated."

Aru openly laughed at the dark scowl that crossed Rixa's face. She shrugged at her brother-in-law with a sarcastic half-smile.

"What can I say Rixa? Hapans...you can either love them or hate them."

Before Rixa could give his opinions on loving or hating Hapans he was cut off by a loud exclamation from up the hallway.

"DAD!"

Ijaat collided with Tyran like a runaway landspeeder and knocked him back onto the bed. If it hadn't been for his son's earsplitting declaration before tackling him, Tyran wouldn't have known what had hit him. They ten year old instantly began apologizing over and over as he cried into Tyran's shirt. Tyran's bewilderment was only overcome by his shock as he wrapped his large arms around his son and held him tight.

"It's okay, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon." Tyran said.

"I'm sorry I made you mad." Ijaat said thickly.

"You didn't make me mad and you don't have to apologize for anything. If anything I'm the one who should be apologizing to you."

Ijaat pulled his head out from his father's chest and wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt. "What do you mean?"

"When your mother called me a bad father it made me think back on a lot of things and I didn't like what I found." Tyran said. "I've lied to you, disappointed you and let you down at every turn and that realization devastated me. But the thing that really made me realize that your mother was right was that board in your room with all your awards and ribbons. I took one look at that and realized I had never been there to see you win a single one of those. I was just too wrapped up in trying to make sure you had a comfortable life that I forgot to be apart of your life. I'm going to try to change that and I'm sorry."

Ijaat blinked at his father for a few moments before wrapping him up in another hug.

"Do you promise?"

"Yeah, I promise." Tyran said. He looked around the room and found a piece of flimsi and scribbled a line of text on it. "Here read this out loud and sign it."

Ijaat looked at the piece of flimsi in confusion as he took it from his dad's hand.

" 'I Tyran Numeck, hereby promise to keep my promises to my son Ijaat Numeck.' " Ijaat read aloud.

Tyran handed him the stylus. "Sign it."

Ijaat did as he was told and gave his dad a confused look. "What is this dad?"

"A contract." Tyran said as he took the flimsi and signed it himself. "Something I cannot break or go renege on." Because Mandalorians always honored their contracts.

Ijaat nodded his head as his father folded the piece of flimsi and tucked it away in the nightstand next to his side of the bed.

"So did your mother make breakfast?"

Aru smiled broadly as her son was steered out of her bedroom by his father. She helped Vyndra put on her knapsack and did a final check of her own person to make sure she had everything she needed. Vyndra walked over to Rixa, who was standing by his astromech by the couch in the living room, and hit him hard in his stomach.

"You lied!"

"Aru would you mind just turning around for a second?" Rixa asked as he rubbed the spot where the ten year old girl had just hit him. Aru did as she was asked and Rixa grabbed the girl by the back of her knapsack with his right hand and lifted her into the air so they were now eye level. "Look you snobby little red-head, it's about time someone taught you some manners. The next time you touch me I'm going to drop you out of a window from the largest building I can find. Understand?"

Vyndra kicked him hard in the groin, which caused him to drop her when he doubled over. Vyndra made a mad dash for the now open front door and into the heavily armored landspeeder that would keep her safe. Aru glanced down at her brother-in-law who was collapsed on the couch and gave him a smile.

"I should have mentioned I've given her some self-defense training."

"I could have told him the same thing." Tyran said. "I was the dummy you used to train her on."

Rixa growled. "I hate Hapans. I really do."

Aru walked over to her son and gave him a kiss on top of his head. "You be good for these two alright?"

"Yes mom." Ijaat said.

"He isn't going with you today?"

Aru shook her head. "Nope, and won't be for the next few days. I called the school and told them Ijaat came down with a bad cold and that he would be out for a while."

Tyran grunted suddenly not feeling so worried about the disciplinary suspension. The fact that he and his son where now both stuck at home for a while seemed too coincidental for his liking.

"What about his school work?"

"I'll bring it home, you can help him with it. It's right up your alley."

Tyran looked down at Ijaat. "What is it?"

"Gyndine and the Yuuzhan Vong invasion."

Tyran and Rixa shared an uneasy glance at each other. They both weren't very fond of Gyndine. But Tyran swallowed and nodded his head.

"Yeah I can do that."

Aru gave him an understanding smile and kissed him on the cheek and hurried out the door after her charge.

Tyran sighed as the door slid shut behind her. Rixa climbed up off the couch and stared at his older brother.

"So what are you doing today?"

Tyran glanced around the kitchen. "Well since Aru has become increasingly health conscious when it comes to what foods she allows me and Ijaat to eat, and I'm not overly fond of Ithorian bran flakes, I was thinking about going out to get some breakfast. Something greasy and heart congesting."

"Sounds fun." Rixa said.

Tyran patted his son on the back. "Ijaat, nothing against your mother's cooking skills, but I think it's time you've seen how a nerf steak should taste."

Ijaat smiled broadly at the prospect of doing something his mother would frown upon and nodded vigorously.

Aru groaned as the speederlane in front of her, as well as the ones above and on both sides of her, came to a halt. Smoke was rising from a crash a few speeder lengths ahead of her and Kuat Security Force vehicles had brought traffic to a standstill while the scene was sorted out. It made her senses as a bodyguard tingle. This was the perfect opportunity for an ambush. Out of instinct she looked to her left and right, discreetly enough to appear as to be casually glancing around while waiting for the KSF to clear the scene.

On her left was an overweight man in his late forties who seemed more interested int the sugared dough twist he was stuffing into his maw of a mouth. No immediate threat there. On her right was a younger-woman, maybe just a few years younger than herself, with dark hair and glareshades that she had propped up on her forehead as she set her elbow against her window and propped her head up in her hand. The woman glanced over at Aru once but didn't do it again for the entire ten minutes they were stuck at a standstill.

"Are we going to be late?" Vyndra asked, clearly worried about a blemish appearing on her stellar attendance record.

"No Vyndra, we're going to get there on time." Aru said. "School doesn't start for another twenty minutes."

Slowly the KSF people began to move the congested traffic lanes along, it took Aru another eight minutes before she was ushered through the standstill and out into more fluid traffic.

"Was that her?"

"Yes it was. Facial recognition came back at a ninety-eight-point-nine percent match to Aru Numeck."

"Good." Talisa Raldi said as she removed her glareshades from her recently dyed hair, taking Dain's advice she had decided to change her appearance. If you were hunting Hapans the last thing you wanted to look like was a Hapan and thus her flame-red hair was now a shiny-black. The woman who had been lying on the floorboard in the backseat of her speeder sat up and took the glareshades that had snapped the holoimage of Aru Numeck to be compared to the image they had on file.

"The threat assessment our intelligence people conducted on her say she is more of starpilot than a master close-quarters-combatant, unlike her husband." The woman said.

"You forget Aenica that Aru Numeck is still a Mandalorian." Talisa said. "It isn't smart to think that just because she hasn't devoted her life to physical combat training like her husband and his partner that she will be an easy target."

Aenica Voren grunted in disagreement. Her crimson hair was cut short and neat, unlike her superior's. "All we need to do is kill her and get the little girl. With six of us and only one of her, it shouldn't be too difficult."

Talisa hoped that the mission to abduct Vyndra Tash would be over quickly. Even though the agreement she had made with the Battle Mistress, the overall commander of the Hapan special forces unit, had been made out of a duty to her commanding officer Talisa was not fond of having the weight of the _Chu'tira_ on her head. The _Chu'tira_ was nothing more than a pledge to one's superior that you would complete your task on the pain of death should you fail. Talisa had been compelled by Battle Mistress Sahn to accept the pledge of _Chu'tira_ and eliminate the traitorous commando Neada Tash.

A decade of throwing squad after squad of Hapan assassins at Neada Tash had resulted in nothing but a spectacular list of dead soldiers for the Hapans, all thanks to the skilled bodyguards who fought by her side. Those squads had been made up of all men, for the simple reason that if a bunch of redheaded women kept attacking you, it would have been clear there was some involvement by the Hapans. Hapan men were not as recognizable as their female counterparts, and could be dismissed as just guns-for-hire. But Neada would know a Hapan Commando when she saw one.

The time for failure was over. Sahn was now sending her best to get the job done, and everyone of them had made the _Chu'tira_ pledge for a little extra motivation. Her team consisted of four women, which included herself, and two men. Brutish though they were, Talvar and Melrek provided muscle that Talisa was going to need at somepoint. As her landspeeder was ushered through the KSF cordon, Talisa gave a subtle nod to the two men the KSF had detained on the pedwalk. The whole accident had been staged just to get an opportunity to confirm which vehicle belonged to Aru Numeck.

Now that they had done that they could start planning on how to abduct Vyndra Tash and draw out Neada to deliver justice for her crimes against the Consortium.

And be done with the _Chu'tira._

**DEELA'S DINER, OFF-WORLDER SECTOR, KUAT CITY, 40 ABY**

**SEVEN DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Tyran smiled as he sipped on his caf and watched his son devour a plate of merilie bacon, a heaping of fried nuna eggs and a nerf steak that was dripping with grease. Just like it should. Rixa had ordered a very similar plate and had put a decent dent in it. Tyran on the other hand hadn't ordered anything other than caf.

He was in too good of a mood to feel like eating. He was sitting next to his son who happier than Tyran could ever recall seeing him, partly because he hadn't really spent much time with his son, and he was with his brother whom he hadn't seen for ten years. Even though that had been by design, and all the bad things they had said to each other before Tyran had left Mandalore for greener pastures, it felt good to see Rixa again.

Ijaat finished his mountain of eggs and bacon, and the only remains of the nerf steak was nothing more than the bone that had run along the edge of the slab of meat. He pushed his plate away and sat back in the booth in a food induced stupor.

"How come mom can't cook like that?"

Tyran shrugged. "I don't know, but I wouldn't ask her. She'll have both our hides if she ever finds out we were here."

Rixa laughed. "I'm glad I don't live here."

Ijaat looked at him. "Where do you live?"

Tyran gave his brother a warning glance and Rixa thought very carefully about his answer. "In the Outer-Rim. Well and truly safe from your mother's wrath."

"Or so you think." Ijaat said.

Tyran and Rixa laughed and Ijaat glanced between them. He found it very odd that his father and the man across from him had so many similarities. They looked identical enough that they could have passed for twins; the same dark hair, well formed muscles, blue eyes, and a ruggedly handsome face. Their voices were also similar in their tones and speech patterns. Ijaat didn't think of himself as unintelligent, in fact he was smarter than Vyndra, so he decided to ask the question that had been nagging at him since he had climbed into the landspeeder with his father and Rixa. He fixed his gaze on the tattooed and scarred man across from his father.

"Are you my uncle?"

By the way both men reacted to Ijaat's question he knew he had just asked a question that neither his father or Rixa wanted to answer.

Rixa busied himself by drinking his own cup of caf and let Tyran field the question.

"What makes you think he's your uncle?" Tyran asked.

"Well the two of you look the same and sound the same, you're both from the military apparently and it would explain why mom was so happy to see him when he showed up." Ijaat said.

Rixa raised his eyebrow at Tyran and Tyran sighed heavily and looked down at his son for a few moments.

"_Rejorhaa'ir te adiik, Rix'ika."_ Tyran said. _Tell the child, Rixa._

"_Tion'gar copaani ba?_ Rixa asked as he set his caf down. _Are you sure you want me to?_

Ijaat stared at his father and Rixa as the conversed in a language he had never heard before. He had never thought his father capable of talking in another language, he didn't seem the type to go the extra mile to learn that type of thing. The only languages he had thought his father could speak were Basic and violence. Soon enough the two of them seemed to reach an understanding and Rixa sat back in his side of the booth and nodded.

"Yes I am your uncle, you're a pretty smart kid." Rixa said. "You must get it from your mother."

"What was that language?" Ijaat said.

"What language?" Tyran said. "You never heard us speak in a different language."

Though his father's voice wasn't angry or firm there was no mistaking what he was trying to imply and Ijaat nodded his head and the subject was dropped. Once everyone was done eating and had finished their second third cup of caf, or chocolate milk in Ijaat's case, Tyran paid the bill and the three of them climbed back into the speeder, with Rusty the astromech secured in the back, and headed for the spaceport. It felt unfair to Ijaat that he had just learned he had an uncle and now his uncle was leaving. He understood that Rixa had some urgent business to attend to elsewhere and that his stay on Kuat was always meant to be a short one. It wasn't until they were five minutes from the spaceport that anyone spoke.

"You should come back here sometime, stay for a while." Tyran said. "You and Jaya both. Aru would love to see her sister I'm sure."

Rixa nodded. "From what I hear, they stay in touch off an on."

"I didn't know that." Tyran said.

"I'll talk with her about it, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to convince her on taking a vacation."

Tyran laughed. "Yeah we could do with one too."

"I have an aunt?" Ijaat asked.

"Yeah your mother's little sister Jaya." Tyran said.

Ijaat began to wonder just how much he really knew about his family. Maybe doing a little research into his lineage would be a good way to pass the time until he had to go back to school. The landspeeder came to a stop outside the spaceport and Tyran and Ijaat walked him inside.

"Did you bring the Aggressor?" Tyran asked him.

"No Jaya had the Aggressor, I got her starfighter." Rixa said.

"Ijaat have you ever seen an X-Wing?" Tyran asked his son.

"Only in holovids."

"You want to see one?" Rixa asked.

"Yeah!"

The three of them walked to the berth that Rixa had been assigned and Ijaat went wide eyed when he saw the old starfighter. It's paint was scorched and faded and it was obvious that not all of the parts were original to the craft but it was the most amazing thing he had ever see.

"It's an old ex-jay-three, nothing compared to the new seven models, but it gets the job done well enough." Rixa said as two deckhands helped raise Rusty and slot him into the R2 unit hold of the starfighter. "Off to Coruscant to finish some business and then back home to get some rest before taking off again."

"You be careful." Tyran said referring to both his younger brother's well being and to the flimsi file he had tucked away under his arm.

"Hey, I'm always careful." Rixa said. "When this job is wrapped up, I'll hold you to that vacation. I hear that Kuat has some nice lakeside resorts."

"Yeah we have a few here." Tyran said as his brother climbed up the ladder and into the cockpit of his starfighter.

Tyran gave him a final wave and steered his son back out of the hangar berth, turning just in time to see the four thrusters of the craft ignite and propel the craft out into the morning sky of Kuat. Ijaat was quiet as they walked back to the speeder. There had been a symbol on the nose of the X-Wing, faded and burned as it was, it was still very visible. He had seen it somewhere before but couldn't place it at that moment. He had seen it very recently, that much he was certain of, so it must have been in one of the lesson he had at school.

Gyndine. The word popped into his head instantly of it's own accord. Ijaat remembered where he had seen that symbol before. It had been on the armor of a group of warriors who had liberated that planet from the Yuuzhan Vong.

It was the symbol of the Mandalorians.


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

**SKYVIEW TERRACE, GALACTIC CITY, CORUSCANT, 40 ABY**

**SEVEN DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

The hyperspace jump from Kuat to Coruscant had been an unpleasant one. Rixa hadn't been able to stop thinking that he had made a horrible mistake when he had taken the Red-Fang report. The distrust his older brother had shown for Rixa's skills as a soldier had shaken him and now he found himself wondering if he had what it took to find and apprehend Red-Fang. It was a dangerous way to start thinking before undertaking a job and Rixa didn't want Vitrix to see the sudden bout of self-doubt that had seeped its way into his subconscious. The last thing that he needed was for Vitrix to start doubting him as well.

Rixa needed to appear to be the same confident mercenary he had been when had first met the intelligence officer a few days earlier. Rixa had arrived at the meeting location where he was to hammer out a price for the Red-Fang job with Vitrix ten minutes early. Vitrix had already been waiting for him inside the restaurant of the Skyview Terrace hotel where they had originally made their deal. It was obvious that the Zabrak was accustomed to being the one who had the upper hand during negotiations.

As he took his seat opposite the Galactic Alliance spook Rixa noted no less than eight armed security detail operatives discreetly, dressed and placed throughout the restaurant. Either Vitrix had become paranoid about Rixa or Red-Fang had somehow accelerated his plans for revenge. That's the only clear conclusion Rixa could come to after reading the official GAI report on the Red-Fang operation, just one piece of intelligence out of several dozen that comprised the report Neada Tash had provided him with.

Red-Fang was not the simple terrorist that Rixa had been led to believe by Vitrix. No he was just a very angry intelligence operative who wanted to settle a score. Rixa was certain that he would only discover more dark details once he returned to Mandalore and went through the large flimsi report in full. But nonetheless Vitrix appeared to be as cool as ever when he looked up from his high-priced nerf steak and wine.

"Ah, my mercenary." He said as he dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin and motioned for Rixa to take a seat across from him. "So you found a little more information on my terrorist I take it?"

Vitrix had an amazing sabaac face Rixa concluded as he took a seat across from Vitrix, deciding to leave his helmet on. "Enough to decide to take the job."

There was some disgruntlement that flashed across the Zabrak's face as he stared into the black visor unable to read Rixa's facial expressions. "Would you like to share that information?"

"Not really, you see us Mandalorians are kind of like holonet reporters in a sense." Rixa said to the confusion of Vitrix.

"How so?"

"We both like to keep our sources to ourselves."

Vitrix grinned and Rixa was sure it was to hide some form of agitation from showing on his own face. "Very well, would you like something to eat? The Alliance will foot the bill."

_Nice try._ Rixa thought catching Vitrix's ploy to get him to remove his helmet. "Thanks but I'm only here to settle on a price then I'm leaving."

Vitrix gave a dismissive, and somewhat disgruntled, shrug and resumed eating his steak.

"How much is the Alliance prepared to pay me to go and get this...terrorist of yours?" Rixa asked.

Vitrix nodded his horned head as he swallowed. "Do you have a figure in mind?"

"Well I'm going to need a team, I have one put together already. They want twenty-thousand apiece, I want forty." Rixa said flatly.

Vitrix was no longer eating but rather sitting up rather straight in his chair as he stared at the Mandalorian.

"How many men are on your team?"

"Seven, including myself." Rixa said.

"One-hundred and sixty-thousand credits."

Rixa nodded. "I'm glad to see you can do the math so quickly."

"Do you mind telling me how you arrived at such a price?" Vitrix said rather shortly.

"Twenty-thousand is a rather standard price for a Mandalorian, considering the target you want eliminated and how difficult he was to track down, it's a rather low one." Rixa said.

"Is that why you want forty for yourself?" Vitrix asked. "Because of the difficulty factor?"

"No. I want the extra twenty because I'm a Numeck." Rixa said simply. "And Numeck's don't come cheap."

"Apparently not." Vitrix sighed. He seemed to weigh his options for a few moments. "Is there room for negotiation in your price?"

"Not even a millimeter." Rixa said. "You want me to do the job, you're going to pay the price I, and the people working with me, require. One-hundred and sixty-thousand credits. Or I walk."

Vitrix didn't reply as quickly as he had to Rixa's request for a few days to do some intel gathering. To show he wasn't bluffing Rixa rose up from the table and began to walk away. His eyes were fixed on the wrap-around-view of his HUD and on the Zabrak staring at him as he walked. If Vitrix wanted Red-Fang dead as much as Rixa suspected he did, it wouldn't be much longer before the Colonel caved and paid the creds. Rixa was almost two table lengths away from Vitrix by the time the intelligence operative rose to his feet.

"One-hundred and sixty-thousand credits it is."

Vitrix's tone didn't sound as if he was happy with having to pay so much but Rixa couldn't have cared less. He spun around and faced Vitrix again and gave him a short nod of his head and began walking back.

"Deposit half of the fee into this bank account and the rest upon completion of the job." Rixa said sliding a datachip of his own across the table. "You won't hear from me again until the job is finished. Most of my employers want proof of their target's death, you have any certain form of proof in particular you'd like me to present to you?"

Vitrix considered it as he stuffed Rixa's datachip into his shirt pocket. "Bring me his head."

_Not exactly the most original thing ever._ Rixa thought as he nodded and walked away again. "You won't have to have these security goons following you around much longer Colonel. I'll have your problem squared away in no time."

Vitrix scowled at his security detail. There was no doubt that the operatives had assured him that they would go unnoticed. Rixa enjoyed showing his employers that just because someone said they were the best didn't mean they were actually the best, unless they were Mandalorian. Rixa left the stuffy confines of the ultra extravagant Skyview Terrace and made a trip the Senate District. Some of the better restaurants and tapcafs on Coruscant were located there.

After the last few days of worrying about getting his Red-Fang intel and then having to go and look for his brother and make an attempt to soothe the troubled waters of his brother's family life, Rixa had come to the conclusion that he needed a drink. You couldn't get _tihaar_ on Coruscant, which was a shame in his opinion, so he had to find a good substitute until he got back to Mandalore. In his experience Joru's Place had some of the strongest drinks on Coruscant and, despite it's more classy position in the Senate District, was popular amongst bounty hunters and mercenaries making a stop on the planet.

He stepped into the interior of the tapcaf and did his customary scan of the area. The interior was covered in muted crimson furniture highlighted by gold lighting. It was smokey but no where near the same scale as the place he had found his brother in the Out-Worlder sector on Kuat. Satisfied that no one he knew or had a problem with was sitting in the room, Rixa walked up to the bar and removed his helmet and waited for the server, a modern SRV-model server droid, to make it's way over to him. He didn't have to wait very long as the droid motored over to him just as he placed his helmet on the latch on his belt.

"Welcome to Joru's Place." The droid said in a flat monotone. "I am Es-Are-Vee-Six-One-Zero. I will be your server today would you like to hear the day's specials?"

Rixa shook his head. "Just give me the strongest alcoholic drink you have on the menu."

The droid motored away without a word and Rixa was left to sit and wait for his drink. The enormity and stress of the task he had just undertaken had begun to sink down onto his shoulders and his fingers began to tap on the surface of the bar of their own accord. A charcoal grey glove dropped down on the bar next to his and Rixa looked up at it's owner and growled in unwelcome surprise.

"Funny meeting you here Dain." He said as he turned his head away from Dain Dolvo.

"The galaxy isn't as big as it seems." Dain said as he took a seat next to Rixa. "Just because our parents hated each other doesn't mean we can't be social."

Rixa raised his eyebrows in mock agreement. "I'm not in a very social mood, I've got a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in."

"You've got enough time to stop for a drink though?"

"I've always got time for that." Rixa said. "If I didn't they'd revoke my Mando Card."

Dain laughed. "Speaking of revoked Mandos, how's your big brother doing? Been in touch with him recently?"

Rixa looked at him suspiciously. Dain and Tyran had a complex history of hating each other one moment and then being able to work as a well oiled machine of destruction in the next. The fact that Dain was asking about Tyran wasn't odd in of itself, but it just felt...weird to Rixa to hear someone from a clan that was sworn enemies with his own ask so casually about his big brother.

"Yeah, I've seen him recently." Rixa said carefully. "Any reason you're asking about him?"

"I heard he was doing well in the security contractor business, times are hard you know and I was wondering if he might have a job for me. Think you could put us in touch?"

Rixa didn't like how this conversation was going. "I'll ask him if he has anything for you."

"I'm not going to kill him or anything, I'm not the same homicidal maniac that my father was." Dain said finding Rixa's suspicious behavior amusing. "I'm just a _Mando'ad_ looking for some high paying work."

Rixa grunted. "Like I said I'll ask him. I know how to get in touch with you."

It was Dain's turn to raise his eyebrows. "You do?"

"I may not be the infamous Tyran Numeck, but give me some credit Dain." Rixa said as his drink arrived. "I know how to keep track of my potential enemies."

The smirk that crossed Dain's face was eerie on a scale Rixa had never felt before. Dain slapped his black-clad counterpart on the shoulder. "That's good to know _Rix'ika_. Be sure to let me know if your brother has any work for me." Dain pulled on his copper-on-dark-grey helmet and turned and left the tapcaf. Rixa grabbed his drink and downed it in a single gulp and decided on having two more before heading off to the spaceport and his return jump home.

"You were right, he did seem to be acting a little...off." Dain said as he proceeded down the pedwalk and away from Joru's Place. "It's probably nothing though. Rixa has always been the more emotional of the two brothers so he's just probably overwhelmed with having seen his brother for the first time in ten years."

"Well I'm not paying you to deal in probability." Vitrix said back from his armored airspeeder. "I'm paying you to deal in certainty, I want you to find out what has gotten him so security conscious. Is there any chance that it could have something to do with the associate you have tailing him? Could he be on to you?"

"No." Dain said confidently. "If Rixa Numeck was on to me he would have tried to kill me the moment I made contact with him, needless to say he would have failed. My source is still safe and providing me with the information I need to keep tabs on him."

"Is it possible that his brother knows about Red-Fang?" Vitrix asked.

Dain groaned. He had a very good idea of where this conversation was going and he didn't like it one bit.

"I'd guarantee that Tyran knows about Red-Fang." Dain said. "Tyran is probably the one who gave Rixa the information he was looking for."

There was silence on the other end of the line for far longer than Dain would have preferred. It meant Vitrix was considering his options, which was certainly going to include the possibility of eliminating Tyran. Dain knew exactly who Vitrix was going to ask to fulfill that task if he felt that was the course of action he needed to take.

"Does he have the potential to become a problem?" Vitrix asked ominously.

"Possibly." Dain said and when his employer let out a disgusted growl he shook his head. "I can't say for certain. Tyran might have just passed off the information he had been able to gather, and it probably wasn't much. If something happens to his brother he might just say 'oh well Rixa finally bit off more than he could chew.' and not do anything more or he could start looking into it."

"Would you advise eliminating him?"

_Ah ha! Here we go._ Dain thought. "Would I advise it? No I wouldn't. Tyran is another beast entirely compared to his little brother."

"If I decided to take that route would you be able to do it?" Vitrix asked.

"It wouldn't be easy, maybe even the most difficult job I've ever done or will ever do, but yes I could do it." Dain said more confidently than he felt. "But it won't be cheap, the heaps of money you've thrown my way these last few days will be small change compared to what you will have to pay me to go after Tyran Numeck."

"If he becomes a problem I will pay whatever it costs to have that problem solved." Vitrix huffed with an indignant sigh. "Just keep an eye on Rixa Numeck for now, he is the main priority. After he kills Red-Fang we'll find out what he learned about the operation and I'll decide on whether or not to eliminate him as well." The call ended abruptly and Dain swore inside his helmet.

Iman Vitrix was starting to become a nuisance that he didn't need, but he was a nuisance that paid very well. The prospect that he might have to hunt down and kill Tyran Numeck was both exciting and terrifying at once. If Dain managed to kill Tyran Numeck, his name and status within the Mandalorians would be revived, the stain of his father's destructive legacy would be washed away by the blood of Dain's own conquest: The death of Tyran Numeck.

Nonetheless a cold block of ice began to build itself in his stomach as Dain headed to his Gladiator to await the final report from his associate before the two day window of comm silence they would have. Dain had a feeling that he knew exactly where Rixa was going though and was eager to see if his hunch was correct.

**NUMECK ****HOMESTEAD****, MANDALORE, 40 ABY**

**EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE ATTACK ON TORYAZ STATION**

Jaya Numeck sighed heavily as she sat in a wicker-backed chair and gently rocked back and forth while she cradled the sleeping form of Velsu Devieyc, the oldest of the twins born to Ryia Devieyc and his wife Lin Diieve. Velsu was an energetic little guy and loved to torment his sister Kelsi in their crib while she tried to sleep. Lin needed the rest after splitting her time between taking care of the two twins and keeping the homestead from falling apart. Jaya had nothing else to do but sit and wait for her husband to come home so she had volunteered to watch the little guy for the night.

Sometimes she felt that Lin had been smart to retire from bounty hunting while she was still young. She could settle down and become more family oriented, something Jaya truly wished for herself, but Rixa was too preoccupied with providing for the clan rather than settling down and starting a family. The wriggling form in her arms only reinforced that need all the more and she sighed again. Thunder clapped outside, muted by the thick walls of the homestead, and the baby barely flinched.

His eyes were darting all around the communal center of the homestead not lingering on one object for more than a few seconds before moving on to the next one. Jaya couldn't help but think that the one-month old was trying to commit it all to memory, which was a ridiculous thought. It brought a smile to her face though and that was something she sorely needed.

Eight standard months, almost an entire year, had gone by since she had seen her husband face to face in the flesh. The only interaction she had with her husband was through random comm calls, which had been enough for her at first but as the months went on they just weren't doing it anymore. Just when it seemed like he would finally be coming back home Rixa had to go an accept another contract from the Galactic Alliance. She understood the potential the job had to provide him and the rest of the homestead residents with a steady income, but it was still frustrating.

Lin's husband Ryia had just returned from his own string of jobs in the Mid-Rim and brought in a healthy sum of fourteen-thousand credits, Jaya's adopted nephew Jaiden and his girlfriend had returned from a trio of jobs in the Outer-Rim with a much lower sum of seven-thousand credits between the both of them, and Jaya herself had managed to secure only five-thousand credits for a single job working for the Black Sun Pirates in tracking down someone who had sold them less than reputable blaster rifles.

Altogether the bounty-hunters and mercenaries of the Numeck homestead had brought in twenty-six thousand credits, which wasn't very much when they had over a hundred-thousand credits worth of repairs and general maintenance to make to the farm equipment, the farmlands and the homestead itself. All of which had fallen into severe disrepair when Tyran and Dyir both left to seek better fortunes for themselves. The two of them had been the more mechanically inclined members of the homestead and generally enjoyed tinkering with the massive harvester droids in their spare time. Ryia and Rixa just managed to keep the homestead held together with strings of curses and copious amounts of tape and glue. Thinking about her husband and his friend arguing over whether or not the other was using the right sized hydrospanner for the job made Jaya laugh and think about the rag-tag group of people that made up her family.

Runi Numeck was the elder of the household and a recluse. He rarely ever came out of his sanctuary, which dominated most of the second level of the homestead, the only thing he ever seemed to come out of his seclusion for was to add his voice, the voice of the Numeck Clan, to political matters. But there hadn't been a meeting of the clans in quite some time and thus no reason for the aging warrior to leave his seclusion. The only sign any of them had that he was still alive was the fact that his dinner trays were always empty when someone went up to retrieve them.

Despite his reclusive nature and general ignorance of the daily troubles and plights of the homestead, Runi Numeck was revered by everyone. When he laid out a course of action on political matters, whether or not the Numecks would back or support the _Mand'alor_, no one stepped outside of that course of action whether they agreed with it or not.

The Devieyc family had transplanted itself into the Numeck homestead after the Yuuzhan Vong war. Ryia's family farm had been leveled by the attack on Mandalore and Lin had no ancestral home on the planet to retreat to, having been born into one of the many nomadic Mandalorian clans scattered around the galaxy. Casualties suffered by the Numecks during the battle had opened up some space in the homestead, and the close nature that Ryia and his younger brother Rev shared with Tyran and Rixa had instantly given them a new home. Rev no longer lived in the homestead but was often present for dinner most nights.

Jaya's adopted-nephew Jaiden was probably the saddest story of the homestead. He had been adopted by Tyran at the age of fourteen after the attack on Mandalore after both his parents had been killed in the fighting. When Tyran and Aru decided to leave Mandalore Jaiden had refused to go along with them and remained behind on his home planet under the protection of his adopted-uncle Rixa. Rixa finished training Jaiden and helped to mold him into a highly intelligent bounty-hunter who had an aptitude for slicing into data-terminals and other encrypted networks.

At the age of eighteen Jaiden met his girlfriend Niya Dinn, a relationship that Niya's parents weren't very fond of. Niya had been cast out from her home and now found sanctuary in the Numeck homestead, which was becoming a collective nexus for castaways it seemed. Niya was also a gifted slicer and spent most of her time following Lin around whenever she wasn't off with Jaiden working or just fooling around. They reminded Jaya of her and Rixa at their age, though she suspected that Jaiden and Niya would have a family of their own a lot sooner than Jaya and Rixa would.

For now she would just have to satisfy her motherly urges by taking care of the two children in the household whenever the opportunity would present itself. It would have to do until Rixa decided that he was ready to be a father. The sleeping bundle in her arms began to kick and wriggle and cry and Jaya began to make soft shushing sounds as she cradled the one-month old infant. Jaya hadn't noticed the soft electronic bleeps as someone entered the security passcodes to the main door of the homestead. Preoccupied with her efforts to comfort the stirring child in her arms she hadn't heard the sound of someone entering the homestead until she heard the main door slide shut and seal itself again.

Ryia was already home, slumbering in bed next to his wife. Jaiden and Niya were out cold in their own room, supposedly. It could have been Rev deciding to crash at his older brother's adopted home instead of paying one of the lodges in Keldabe for a nights stay. She knew for certain it wasn't Rixa, he always called before coming home. Somewhat confident that she knew who had entered her house Jaya rose to her feet and held the fussing child in one arm while she reached into the waistband of her durafab sleep pants and grabbed the veshok-wood handle of the antique knife she had stowed there.

Just in case.

"Rev you better have a good reason for scaring the hell out of me or so help me I'm going to cut your–" Jaya said as she started to walk towards the main lobby only to stop short when she saw the sopping wet form of her husband standing in the doorway.

Beads of water were falling freely off his abyssal-black armor and onto the carpet at his feet, which was surely going to upset Lin when she discovered the muddy stains his feet had left in the fabric. Jaya exhaled in surprise and almost ran to her husband until she remembered what she was holding. She took a few steps towards him but let Rixa close the distance and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug, he was careful to not crush the infant against his chest plate as he did so. For the first time in nearly a year Jaya finally got the chance to kiss her husband and for the few seconds the moment lasted she tried to convey the eight months of loneliness and sadness she had felt without him.

"I'm gone for eight months and you go and have yourself a kid?" Rixa laughed after he kissed his wife. "Doesn't look like me." He looked down at the blonde haired child who was still fussing between the two of them.

Tears were falling down Jaya's face freely but she smiled at her husband. "Well you were out an about and I needed to satisfy some urges."

Rixa laughed and kissed Jaya again and then looked down at the small infant. He hadn't officially seen the two children in the flesh or experienced their already legendary crying fits firsthand yet. He had just seen them in holos transmitted to him by Jaya and the first few holos that had been taken after their birth. Ryia hadn't been present for their birth either, he had been out working just like Rixa, but the two of them had met up on Fondor in the Mid Rim for a celebratory night of drinking. Seeing one of the children in the flesh though brought up emotions that simple holos just couldn't.

"This is Velsu right?" Rixa said gently running a gauntlet-covered hand over the kids small cranium.

Jaya nodded. "Yes."

"Why's he out here with you?" Rixa asked.

"Lin needed the rest and I couldn't sleep. Neither could this little guy and to prevent him from antagonizing his sister I thought I'd bring him out here and rock him to sleep."

"It doesn't look like your plan is working." Rixa laughed as he pulled himself free of his wife's one-armed embrace.

"It was until it started thundering." Jaya said scowling out the window at the sky to her husband's amusement.

"Let me get out of this armor and I'll be back to give you a hand." Rixa said.

Jaya gave him a skeptical look but couldn't keep the smile off her face as he disappeared down the hallway. She was overjoyed to the point of hardly being able to function at having her husband home. She could only stand in the congregation room of the house with a silly smile on her face and hold the infant in her arms. Rixa must have set a new time record for stripping out of his armor because it barely felt like a minute had passed before he reappeared in the congregation room wearing his dark under clothes. He let a smile spread across his scarred face as his eyes fell on the still fidgeting child in his wife's arms. He extended his hands and Jaya gently slipped Velsu into the trunk-like arms of her husband and watched in amazement as the child almost instantly became inert. Jaya let out a disgruntled huff.

"How do you Numecks do that?" She asked.

Rixa grinned. "Hey, there are somethings that just come naturally to people."

Aru sighed and wrapped her arms around her husbands waist and took a few moments to watch him as he cradled the small child. "I remember when Aru had Ijaat and how he would have these crying fits that no one could get him to come out of. Then Tyran would show up grab Ijaat up in his arms and Ijaat instantly stopped crying and would fall asleep not too long after that. It drove Aru nuts."

Rixa smiled. "I remember that. You should see Ijaat now, he's getting big and he's smart as a whip."

"Really?" Jaya said. "You saw him?"

"Yeah, him and his parents. Tyran and Aru were miserable when I got there. They absolutely hated each other, but I think I got things sorted out before I left."

"Wow, you're a bounty-hunting, contract killer who does marriage counseling on the side." Jaya said.

"I'm good at a lot of things." Rixa said modestly. "Before I left, the two of us were invited to go on an all expense paid vacation to one of Kuat's finest lakeside resorts with them."

Jaya let out an enticing groan as she rested her head on his shoulder. "A vacation sounds wonderful. An all expense paid vacation with my sister sounds even better though."

"Once I get this Red-Fang job done I told Tyran we'd love to take him up on the offer."

Jaya lifted her head and adopted a sour look. The last thing she wanted was to talk about the mission her husband had undertaken after only just getting him to come back home.

"I take it Tyran gave you the intel you needed."

"Yeah, but it had a pretty steep price though." Rixa sighed darkly.

"What do you mean?"

Rixa stared at his wife for a a few seconds before shaking his head. "Don't you worry about it. Do you want to know how much I'm getting paid to hunt down this terrorist?"

"How much?"

"One-hundred and sixty thousand credits." Rixa said.

Jaya went wide eyed.

"I have to put together a team though, I told the contractor I already had one to jack up the price, I need six more guys and I figured Ryia, Rev, Jaiden and Niya would be up for it. Maybe I can get a call to Elai and Baydo for some help."

Jaya looked hurt. "You get a team job and don't want me coming with you?"

"Well I had other plans for you." Rixa said with a smile as he looked down at the infant in his arms and back up at his wife. "I was hoping maybe we could get started on a family of our own."

Jaya was stunned and didn't know what to say to her husband. She opened her mouth but her lips and tongue failed to work together to form words and what came out instead was incoherent babbling.

"Tyran and Aru have a child, now Ryia and Lin have a set of twins. My brother and my best friend both have something I don't and I'm starting to feel left out." He said quietly. "I think being a father is something I'm sure to be good at and with the money from this contract I'll feel a little better about raising a child."

"You're serious?!" Jaya said.

Rixa nodded. "Are you ready for that?"

Jaya laughed. "I've been ready since the day my sister had her child."

"Good." Rixa smiled. "How about we put this little guy to bed and maybe get started on this family thing?"

"I expect my money's worth after eight months of being away from each other." Jaya said with a smirk.

"I'll try not to disappoint."


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT:**

**NUMECK HOMESTEAD, MANDALORE, 4O ABY**

**SEVERAL DAYS AFTER THE BOMBING OF THE ELITE HOTEL**

Ryia's wife walked into the kitchen wiping her hands on a washrag as she moved to sit beside him. She was a head shorter than her husband with white-blonde hair that fell between her shoulder blades that she often kept tied in a tight tail. Despite being retired from the mercenary world Lin kept herself as physically fit as she could, fitting in her exercise when ever she had an opportunity. Her dazzling emerald green eyes were constantly outlined by black bags of fatigue that had been brought on by the two twins she had just given birth to a month earlier.

Her husband was seated at the table finishing off the rest of his dinner. He was thirty-one years old and in top physical shape. He had close shaven blonde hair and a layer of rough fuzz on his chin and jawline that Lin wouldn't ever let him shave.

"So are you going to be working for this...Galactic Alliance Guard?" Lin asked. "Aren't they the ones paying Rixa for this job?"

Ryia shook his head. "We're working for Galactic Alliance Intelligence, or something like that." Ryia didn't really know, he'd clarify it with Rixa later.

"I still don't want you to go." Lin said. "You've only been back for a few weeks and I need as much help with the twins as I can get."

"Its twenty-thousand creds Lin." Ryia said. "How am I supposed to say no to that." Ryia understood why his wife didn't want him to take off again, in fact if the payout wasn't so large Ryia would have told Rixa that he wasn't taking anymore jobs for awhile.

"You got seventeen for your last few jobs, that's more than enough for the foreseeable future." Lin tried again.

"Seventeen is good, but seventeen plus twenty is better." Ryia countered. "Most of our money goes on repairs to the equipment and this shoddy old building. My kids aren't going to go the first few months of their life without decent meals."

Lin couldn't argue with that because she knew better than her husband just how broken down the homestead was. "Jaya's staying behind so I guess she can help with the twins. I'd rather it be you though."

Ryia felt bad for disappointing his wife but it was for the betterment of his family and he wasn't going to be talked out of his decision. He kissed her on her forehead and stood up from the table. "I'll be in the armory with Rixa looking over that report Tyran gave him. There might be a few leads to where this Red-Fang might have gone after he disappeared during the Vong war."

"Find something soon so that way you'll get to come home all the quicker." Lin said as she watched her husband get up and walk away.

Ryia disappeared around the corner and Lin sat behind the table taking a few moments to just sit and think about things. How many more jobs would Ryia run after this one? How much money would Ryia have to earn before he was satisfied he felt his children would be comfortably provided for? How much longer before her husband's luck ran out and she had to raise their twins on her own?

Those thoughts and more drifted back and forth in her mind and she couldn't stop those thoughts than she could stop her husband from heading off with Rixa.

Rixa shook his head while he watched the vidscreen over the lip of his caf cup as he took a long sip. Bodies were still being pulled from the wreckage and destruction caused by the terrorist bombing. Coruscanti were calling for the blood of the Corellians and the Galactic Alliance appeared to be willing to five it to them. The creation of the Galactic Alliance Guard had just been announced under the command of none other than the so called hero of the Yuuzhan Vong war Jacen Solo. Rixa huffed into his cup as the headlines scrolled across the bottom of the screen still relaying the aftermath.

"Well, well it looks like pacifism isn't his preferred cup of caf anymore." Rixa grumbled.

He had secluded himself in the homestead's armory to go over the pages of flimsi that constituted the Red-Fang report. He'd only been home for a few days and didn't have very many more until he had to take off again to begin his hunt and he still hadn't found very much in the way of leads. The lamisteel table in front of him was covered in flimsi pages, personnel files, operational debriefing packets, and everything else that was standard paperwork for the kind of black-op that Red-Fang was. The closest thing Rixa had had to a lead was a name: Rowel. It was listed on several transaction receipts from a bank on a world called Davstaa. Each transaction varying in the size of the withdrawn sum, and each withdrawal not going over one-thousand credits.

He wasn't familiar with the planet and he'd had Rusty pull up some info for him so he wouldn't have to stop searching through the Red-Fang file. Rusty informed him that Davstaa was a moderately temperate world very similar to Corellia and Naboo. Urban settlements were peppered across rolling green fields and deep blue lakes. It wasn't a world known for anything special and it wasn't visited much as a vacation spot despite it's beautiful scenery, and the local government had always seemed to bend to the will of the New Republic. It was that last fact that confused Rixa. From the few debriefing packets he had read already, Red-Fang was always deployed to worlds where the local governing body didn't agree with the New Republic. If Davstaa always towed the line why would transaction receipts from one of it's banks be included in the Red-Fang report?

His brain had tossed that fact around for hours until Jaya had come to check on his progress. He told her about the problem he was having and in true Jaya fashion she figured it out in less than thirty minutes. She had sat down at the table with him read over a few of the flimsi pages and pointed out something that he had missed.

"Jabiim is mentioned quite often in some of these files." She had said as she turned to her astromech droid. "How far away is Jabiim from Davstaa?"

The droid tweedled an answer and Jaya smiled broadly at Rixa. He smiled even though he was silently cursing himself for missing the connection to Jabiim.

"Alright so Jabiim is an hour away from Davstaa by hyperspace jump. Maybe Rowel is Red-Fang's name and he was using Davstaa as a staging point to begin an op on Jabiim?" She offered.

"Rowel is most likely an alias but Jabiim has always been a hotbed of political problems and was always going against the grain of the New Republic for one reason or another. So it certainly would have been the kind of target Red-Fang was intended to go after." Rixa said. "But I haven't found anything else in this file that indicates that Red-Fang ever operated on Jabiim."

"So that has to be when Red-Fang disappeared then. If you've gone through all the debriefing packets on the worlds Red-Fang operated on and Jabiim isn't one of them, that must mean something made Red-Fang abandon the New Republic before he started operating on Jabiim or during the very early stages of his operation at the least."

"Maybe, but what would make an intelligence operative abandon a mission, hide for ten years and then come back and kill the people involved in the operation?" Rixa shrugged at his wife who then proceeded to give him an apologetic kiss on his cheek and leave the room.

That had been four hours ago and Rixa was still wondering if Jabiim might have been the key to locating Red-Fang and was happy to have the distraction of the Galactic Alliance Guard announcement to occupy his mind for a few moments. Ryia entered the armory and glanced up at the vidscreen and chuckled.

"How do they expect to keep a secret police force a secret if they announce it's creation over the Holonet?" Ryia asked.

Rixa shrugged. "That's the Alliance for you."

"Are these the people we're going to be working for?" The older Mandalorian asked as he pointed up at the vidscreen. "Jacen Solo and his new crew of Corellian hunters?"

Rixa shook his head. "Relax we aren't working for any Force-users. Just some intelligence operative who has an asset who's trying to kill him."

"As long as he forks over the twenty-thousand creds I don't care if he's the Jedi Grand Master or Emperor Palps reborn." Ryia fixed his friend with a serious stare. "He is going to pay those creds right? Make no mistake I'm only coming with you because the payout is so good, otherwise I'd rather be here with my wife and newborns."

Rixa winced. "Lin still giving you a hard time?"

"She's moved past yelling and shouting but she still is trying to convince me to stay." Ryia said tiredly.

Rixa sighed. "Just hang in there for a few more days, then we're out of here."

Ryia pulled up a seat next to Rixa and grabbed a few pages of flimsi and glanced over them. "Find anything useful?"

"A name on some bank transactions on Davstaa. Rowel." Rixa said. "That's about it though."

"Davstaa isn't really known for much and usually behaves itself in the arena of galactic politics, wonder why it came up in this report?" Ryia said. Rixa gave him a tired look.

"You're familiar with Davstaa." When Ryia nodded his head but remained silent Rixa decided to run Jaya's theory past him. "Jaya thinks Davstaa came up because it is so close to Jabiim, maybe Rowel was the alias Red-Fang was going under while using Davstaa as a staging point for a staging area."

"Jabiim has always been a thorn in the side of whichever political body is ruling the galaxy so it is possible." Ryia thumbed through a few pages of flimsi. "Rowel...I have a buddy on Davstaa, I'll give him a call and see if he can find us any images of our mystery person. Davstaa wasn't hit by the Yuuzhan Vong so it shouldn't have any missing data from it's networks."

"Ok, we might be making a trip to Jabiim eventually. If we can find a holo of this Rowel person our chances might improve slightly. I doubt he was using the name Rowel on Jabiim, if he ever set foot on the planet at all."

"Delia is back in town." Ryia said with a grin. "She is a slicer extraordinaire, she might be able to find this Rowel for us."

Rixa groaned. "Delia won't help me, not after what happened between us."

"That was years ago, you both were fifteen years old."

"Skirata women don't forget Ryia." Rixa said. "They certainly don't forgive."

"Yeah." Ryia laughed. "The only reason her big brothers didn't cave your skull in were because you had me, Dyir and Tyran to back you up when they came calling. It was one of the better fist fights I've ever been a part of."

Rixa laughed and rubbed the corner of his right eye as he thought back on that day, a broken orbital bone was a painful injury. "They didn't cave my skull in, but it wasn't for a lack of trying on their part."

"Either way _Rix'ika_ you might end up having to ask her for help if things don't work out with my contact." Ryia grinned. "I heard back from the others though, looks like you got yourself a team."

Rixa nodded. "Who?"

"You already know me and my little brother are coming with you, Elai and Baydo cleared up their schedules when they heard twenty-thousand creds, Jaiden and Niya took some convincing but they're in as well."

"Good. You couldn't get the Bralor brothers to come along?"

"No our two Barabel friends are busy chasing what they called a 'worthy hunt' somewhere out in the Expansion Region."

"Too bad, Barabels would have come in handy."

"Yeah they would."

**KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**SEVERAL DAYS AFTER THE BOMBING OF THE ELITE HOTEL**

Aru smiled happily.

It was a weird sensation that she hadn't felt for a very long time and her facial muscles often felt like they were going to cramp up as they contorted into positions they had long since forgotten. Her husband had been home for just over eight days and had spent the first three of them with Ijaat. At first he had no idea what to do with the boy because they were vastly different in the hobbies they both enjoyed doing. Ijaat was a bookworm and the epitome of the perfect student, always did his homework, always on time, always following the rules to the letter.

Tyran enjoyed more physical hobbies, refining his body and mastering combat techniques were how he spent his time and Aru didn't mind that at all, she quite enjoyed having a husband who appeared to be carved from Ithorian Granite. Ijaat wasn't physical in anyway shape or form and was often made fun of by his schoolmates during their fitness classes for his incompetence in that one area. Aru had hinted at Tyran that maybe he could help his son with that.

Now Ijaat was pinned to a plastifoam mat in their living room being tied up in an Atzerri stinger-lock by his father while Vyndra sat on the couch watching the display. To Aru's delight Ijaat was game with the idea and was putting his ability to soak up information to the test, memorizing every hold his father taught him. Atzerri Wrestling wasn't exactly what Aru had in mind when she had told Tyran to help Ijaat in the physical fitness area, but it was close enough.

"Now if I put all my strength into this armlock, it would snap your elbow like a twig under a boot." Tyran said as he simply held his son's arm in the hold without applying any force or pressure. "It's very good for getting people to tell you things they wouldn't normally tell you."

Tyran released Ijaat and sat back on his heels while his son climbed up to his knees. Ijaat had impressed him so far by memorizing several complex armbars and other maneuvers relatively quickly.

"Teach me how to punch." Ijaat said.

Aru looked up at that comment and caught Tyran's eye giving him a subtle shake of her head. Tyran gave her a sly grin and looked at his son.

"Why do you want to know how to punch?"

Ijaat shrugged. "I want to hit someone."

Tyran laughed. "I appreciate the honesty, but I'm not going to teach you how to knock someone out cold. Your mother wouldn't approve."

Ijaat looked over at his mom. "Hey Mom could you run out to the store and get some fizzade, I think we're out."

Tyran laughed again and even Aru allowed a smile. "Nice try Ijaat but we've got plenty of fizzade in the conservator."

Vyndra jumped down off the couch and looked at Aru. "You taught me how to throw a punch, why can't Ijaat learn too?"

Ijaat looked at his mother again. "Yeah?"

"You need to know how to defend yourself Vyndra if you ever wind up in a situation where I'm not able to protect you." Aru said. "Ijaat just wants to beat up a couple of bullies, a situation that I've already taken care of by the way." She looked at her husband. "Do not teach him how to punch."

Tyran put his hand over his heart. "You've got my word."

Aru gave him a suspicious smirk and went back to cutting up the vegetables in front of her. "Ijaat you and Vyndra go get cleaned up for dinner, Tyran you clean up the mess you made of my living room." Vyndra and Ijaat walked to their respective refreshers, one scowling and the other brooding.

"I bought the house yet everything in it is yours." Tyran said with a smile as he rose up to his feet and began rolling up the plastifoam mat. "Funny how that worked out."

Aru grinned wickedly. "When we got married what was yours became mine and what was mine stayed mine. You didn't know that's deal you made?"

Tyran dropped the mat in the hallway and walked up behind his wife and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Not at first, but after the first couple of weeks I knew something about our deal was a little off."

Aru let another unaccustomed genuine smile cross her face as she felt the strength of her husband's arms wrap around her. Her smile widened as he kissed her neck. A week ago a moment like this one wouldn't have been possible, romance in their relationship had been effectively killed by the animosity that they had held for each other. But the previous night however had rekindled the flame of romance. For the fist time in the ten years they had both lived on Kuat, Tyran and Aru hadn't woken up in the early hours in the morning. In fact it wasn't until the late afternoon that they both had emerged from their bedroom and they were still feeling tired from the previous night.

It had been just like the night she had celebrated the _verd'goten_ upon the completion of her training. Tyran was a year older than her and had already gone through his _verd'goten_ and she had made sure to make it a special occasion for him after the celebrating was over. Somehow he had managed to surpass the night she had given him. The previous night he had done the same thing, he had surpassed her memory of the greatest intimate moment the two of them had ever shared. On some level she felt as if it was his way of saying he was sorry.

Maybe it was or maybe it wasn't, she didn't really care. Tyran was going out of his way to spend as much time with Ijaat as possible and he even included Vyndra in some of their father/son outings. Aru was perfectly willing to accept that as an apology on its own, but if he wanted to apologize by giving her incredible moments of physical intimacy she certainly wasn't going to stop him.

"More vegetables?" Tyran said as he rested his chin on her shoulder.

"You got a problem with that?" She asked.

"A greasy nerf steak wouldn't hurt anyone every now and then." Tyran said.

She turned her head and looked at him. "I can probably be persuaded to cook a nerf steak."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Well how should I go about persuading you?"

"Just do what you did last night."

Tyran smiled and kissed her again and then began walking back to the hallway to get the plastifoam mat to put it away. "I'm going to get that nerf steak."

"I bet you are." Aru laughed as he walked behind her.

She yelped when he gave her a playful pat on the rear and disappeared around the corner. It amazed her just how much her life had changed in just a few short days and it was all because of Rixa. Calling him to look for Tyran had been one of the best ideas Aru had ever had. She pulled her commlink from her pocket and linked it to an earpiece before entering the comm code for her brother-in-law. It took Rixa two heartbeats to answer.

"If my brother has gone missing again, you're going to have to go and look for him yourself, I'm rather busy at the moment."

Aru laughed. "Oh no, Tyran is still skulking around. I just called to say thank you for doing all the stuff that you did for us. We haven't been this close for years."

"Eh well it's all in a days work for me I guess." Rixa said casually.

"So how are things on your end?"

"Oh I just have to live with an insatiable brunette who doesn't want me to leave in a couple of days. Other than that everything is peachy."

"Mmhmm." Aru said. "Listen if you guys ever need any help financially, we wouldn't mind helping you out."

Rixa sighed. "I appreciate the offer but I'd rather provide for my family on my own. I'm sure you understand."

Aru did. She doubted that Tyran would take money from any one unless he earned it himself, it was that damned male pride of his made worse by the legendary Numeck stubbornness.

"The offer stands anyway."

"I appreciate it."

"Tell Jaya I want to see some holos of those two babies Lin had."

"I will, but between you and me, I'm not going to miss hearing those two loudhailers wailing every morning when I head back out again."

Aru grunted. "Babies are noisy. Just wait until you have a few of your own."

"We're working on it."

"Ah, hence the insatiable brunette." Aru nodded her head. "I was the same way when me and Tyran were trying to conceive."

"I've got to go, still have a lot to do before heading out next week. I'll have Jaya call you soon though, I'm sure she'd love to spend hours talking with you."

"I'd like that." Aru said. "Take care of yourself out there Rixa, stay out of trouble."

Rixa laughed. "I'm a Numeck, I don't go looking for trouble. It comes looking for me."

Aru smiled and said goodbye before ending the call and removing the earpiece from her ear and tucking it away in her shirt pocket. The thought of her sister having a few children of her own brought the biggest smile yet to her face. Aru had lied to Rixa in a way, she and Tyran hadn't actually tried to conceive a child. Ijaat was the result of a night of celebration after the end of the Yuuzhan Vong war. He had been a welcome surprise and was rapidly turning into the best thing Aru had ever done with her life. She was intensely proud of her son and his accomplishments and couldn't help but wonder what he would have been like if he'd grown up on Mandalore.

Suddenly the mix of vegetables on the tray before her didn't look as good as they had moments earlier. Tyran, Ijaat and Vyndra all returned to the living room at the same time more or less. Each child sat down on either side of Tyran on the sofa and he looped his arms around them as they settled in and waited for her to call them to the table for dinner. Tyran had done enough in the last week to warrant a greasy nerf steak.

"Tyran I was thinking maybe we could take the kids out tonight, you know any place that has a good, sizzling nerf steak?" She called over to him.

Tyran looked up over the back of the sofa. "I might know a place."

"How long do we have to sit and wait to make our move?" Aenica said as she paced across the dingy apartment the Hapan commando team had rented for their stay on Kuat. "We could've picked the runt up this morning when her bodyguard was out grocery shopping."

Talisa shook her head. "Tyran Numeck was still in the apartment with the two children. We are not going anywhere near that man, his win/loss ratio when it comes to fighting Hapans is appallingly impressive."

"That's what we brought those two oafs for." Aenica bellowed as she pointed at Talvar and Melrek who were seated in the corner playing a game of sabaac.

"I'd bet my ridiculous salary that Tyran Numeck would kill the both of them without breaking a sweat." Talisa said. "No, we're going to wait until Aru and Vyndra are separated from Tyran before we make our play."

"So when they're at the school?"

"We aren't going to attack a school!" Talisa thundered. "We have no deadline to perform our task. We aren't going to blow this like the other squads, we are going to sit tight and wait for the absolute, indisputably perfect opportunity to grab the girl and execute her bodyguard."

"I don't like sitting here." Aenica said.

"Then go and storm the Numeck house, you won't mind sitting so much when you're dead."

Both Hapan women glared at each other. Aenica blinked first and stalked off to her assigned quarters and locked herself in. Talisa sighed and put her hand on her stomach. She was becoming increasingly nauseous lately and couldn't figure out why. Neldri, their team medic, surmised that Talisa had simply caught some Kuati stomach bug that would pass in a few days. Talisa didn't have a few days to wait for her illness to pass, she was the team leader and had to keep Aenica in check. Aenica was the only chink in the chain that was her team, a chink that could cause everything to fall apart in sickening seconds.

Her stomach knotted up and her knees began to quiver and Talisa bolted for the refresher and barely made it to the toilet before the bile exploded from between her lips. Sweat poured down her forehead and nose and she pounded her hand against the lamisteel floor before vomiting again.

"Neldri!" She called. "Get a speeder and take me to the nearest medcenter. I need to get this sorted out now!"

The younger Hapan woman appeared in the refresher doorway and helped Talisa to her feet before following her out. Talisa turned to the two burly Hapan men.

"Keep Aenica here. I don't care how you do it just make sure she doesn't leave this apartment."

Talvar nodded his bald head and went back to his sabaac game. "Dalrial is in charge until I get back."

She had to get this sorted out. She wasn't going to let her commanding officer down. Neada Tash was going to be brought to justice.


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE:**

**KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**THIRTEEN DAYS AFTER THE BOMBING OF THE ELITE HOTEL**

The words were still ringing in Talisa's ears. Clearly spoken at first the Bith doctor's voice slowly became a persistent droning tone that wouldn't go away. Was some cruel and twisted force playing an ill tempered joke on her? Or was it more likely a cabal of all-powerful monstrosities that were taking turns to see who could ruin her life the best? Having to swear the _Chu'tira_ oath was just one move in the sick game of dejarik she was playing with an unseen foe. Her opponent's last move had all but sealed her destruction.

There was no way Talisa could now continue her mission of hunting down Neada Tash, she couldn't fulfill her oath to the Battle Mistress and therefore could never return to her homeworld without being sentenced to death for her failures. It didn't matter anymore though her priorities had changed in an instant. Now her current objective was to escape the medcenter without being seen by Neldri, who was still sitting in the waiting room. After that it would be getting of Kuat before the Hapans managed to locate her.

That would be easier said than done though, Battle Mistress Thel Sahn had built up a network of agents on the planet to keep a close on eye on Tash. Any move that Talisa made she had to assumed that it was going to be noticed by someone.

Her mind began to race with a series of safehouses and weapons caches she could drop by to get supplies She would have to do it fast though, once she abandoned Neldri she would maybe have a few hours before the Hapans started to hunt her instead f Tash. Talisa had stopped paying attention to the Bith doctor and it hadn't gone unnoticed. The Bith gently reached out and pt his hand on her shoulder.

"Ms. Rova, can you hear me? Are you alright?" He asked using her cover identity,

Talisa glared at him. _No I am not alright! My life was just thrown off course by an event I had planned on happening for a very long time!_

"Yes Doctor I am fine, just a little shaken. This was unexpected." She sighed instead of stating her real thoughts.

The Bith nodded. "Well we re-ran the tests just like you did, twice to be sure. The results were the same however." He continued as he glanced down at a piece of flimsi. "You're pregnant."

Talisa nodded her head, less than enthusiastic about the news. "How far along am I?"

"Well for a human female I'd say you're a few standard weeks along, two maybe three."

Talisa reached back into her memory to try and recall how this had happened. She had been on Kuat for a standard week and was certain she hadn't had any sexual experiences in that time. Two standard weeks earlier though she had been on Gyndine, and she had certainly had a sexual encounter there. With a Mandalorian no less. She recalled feeling apprehensive about swearing the death oath to her superior and decided that she was going to have at least one more good night with a random partner, just in case she failed. His name was Dain, though his last name escaped her at the moment, she had no trouble recalling the night they had shared together, fueled by expensive Corellian booze.

She had to contact him. He could help her get off the planet without the Hapan's finding out, Mandalorians could do that kind of thing in their sleep. Plus she had other things to tell him. Sudden thoughts about him not wanting to help her and disputing that the baby was his filled her mind and it scared her on a level she had never encountered before. She pushed away the thoughts as quickly as she could and focused on the task at hand: ditching Neldri.

"We'll give you something for the nausea." The doctor was saying. "Go home and try to relax and don't strain yourself too hard."

Talisa nodded but sadly couldn't follow the doctor's orders. There was a lot to do in the next few hours, and she wasn't even sure she had a few hours to do it all to begin with. A human nurse came into the room with two capsules and a flimsi cup filled with water. Talisa downed the the pills in one gulp and five minutes later she was walking down the pedwalk with Neldri, her mind churning with quick and easy plans to lose her teammate. But ever plan she came up with seemed worse than the previous one and soon Talisa was left with only the absolute last resort.

"So what did the doc say?" Neldri asked as hey approached their speeder.

Talisa shrugged as if it was nothing. "You guessed it. I contracted a stomach bug the doctor said I'll be fine in a few days."

"See I told you coming here was a waste of time." Neldri said. "You need to listen to me more."

Neldri began walking to the driver's side of the speeder but Talisa waved her off. "I'd like to drive if you don't mind."

"Are you sure?"

Talisa nodded. "They gave me meds to settle my stomach. I'm not going to get drowsy and fall asleep on you."

Neldri gave her a cautious look but circled around to the passenger side anyway. Talisa climbed into the driver's seat and started up the speeder and took off into the late night Kuat sky. Neldri lowered the viewscreen on the passenger side door and rested her elbow on the frame as a slight breeze rolled into the speeder. The young medic ha no idea that her life was winding down and Talisa felt a very real sense of regret. She rather liked Neldri, but Neldri was a soldier to her core and would follow her orders and report Talisa if she ever found out she was pregnant. Talisa couldn't risk that.

"Neldri let me see your knife." Talisa said looking at the flimsi plat bracelet on her wrist. "I want to get this blasted thing off."

Neldri reached into her boot and provided a small durasteel survival knife. Keeping one hand on the controls Talisa cut the tag off her arm with a single slice.

"Thank you." Talisa said softly. "And I'm sorry."

Neldri turned and looked at Talisa. Her mouthed opened to say something but in a single deft movement Talisa reversed her grip on the knife and slammed it down hard into the young medic's chest, piercing her heart. Neldri let out a sharp yelp and tried to pull her commander's away from her chest but Talisa forced as much of her weight down onto the knife as she could. Soon Neldri's pleas turned into wet gurgles that faded into silence. Blood was flowing out from around the knife in a steady stream and had coated Talisa's right hand in a matter of seconds. She gently closed Neldri's eyes, unable to deal with the fearful, pained, accusing look on her former friend's face.

Talisa began to sob quietly as she turned the speeder in the direction of the nearest safe house. Even though Neldri had been her friend, she was loyal to the Battle Mistress and as a result had to be eliminated. At least that was what she kept telling herself.

Neldri's body had been hard to dispose of, though the task had actually been the last thing on a long list of things Talisa had to do in order to make sure the safehouse alarms weren't tripped.

The safehouse was actually located in the in Kuat's middle-class zone. It was home to the average working class citizens of the planet, not exactly rich but far from being poor. After dealing with the alarm situation Talisa had only to find a suitable place to dispose of the body. Apparently in the basement of her building there was an incineration pit where all the garbage was disposed of. It wasn't what Neldri deserved but it was what Talisa could accomplish.

Talisa had placed the body on the repulsor belt and watched her comrade enter the machine and disappear in an orange-yellow burst of light. Neldri's commlink and all the contents of her pockets were were now safely tucked away in Talisa's jacket pocket. She returned to the speeder and pulled a set of bantha hide seat covers over the bloodstained seats. Talisa kept her hands in her pockets as she entered the building, a couple of Gran were standing in the hallway as she walked to the door of the safehouse. She stared the down until they looked away.

She used her clean hand to use the swipecard to gain access into the room, keeping her right hand shoved deep in her pocket. The apartment was modest but small, the illumination panels were inactive and cool to the touch but that didn't meant that the room was empty. She gripped Neldri's knife in her hand as she located the light controls and glanced around her immediate surroundings. The safehouse wasn't meant for more than two people at any given time and it's size reflected as much. It was one large room flanked by two small bedrooms and a single refresher.

It took her five minutes to thoroughly clear the rooms and locate the weapons stash that had been hidden away in the apartment, the duraplast case had been wedged behind the frame of the sanisteam in the refresher. It contained nothing more than a Hapan holdout blaster, six powerpacks, stuncuffs, two deactivated commlinks, a medkit and two more survival knifes. The charge on the blaster was at full capacity so Talisa made sure that the safety was engaged and tucked it away in her waistband under her jacket and collected one of the commlinks and moved to the sofa.

Talisa began the process of dismantling the commlink and locating the tracking bug that would activate the moment the device was powered up. She reassembled the commlink, took a deep breath and turned the device over in her hands a few times as she tried to relax before calling Dain. She took a final calming breath and entered his comm code and waited. Dain answered almost immediately.

"Dolvo."

His voice alone seemed to inspire confidence in her. "Dain it's Talisa. I'm in kind of a situation here."

"Situation? What kind of situation?"

"I can't trust my team anymore and it won't be long before they start hunting me down." Talisa said grimly.

"So get off the planet."

"I can't. There is a Hapan network embedded in almost every agency on the planet. They would be all over my transport before it ever left it's berth."

"I'm in the Outer Rim." Dain said. "I can't help you right now."

"Dain I'm pregnant." The other end of the line fell silent and a spike of alarm rolled through her. "Dain?"

"I'll be on Kuat in a day." Dain said. "I'll make a call to an old associate of mine, he will keep you safe until I can find a way to get you off the planet."

The first wave of relief Talisa had felt in days washed over her. "Where do I go? I'm in a Hapan safehouse and won't be able to stay here for very long."

"In the Off-Worlder sector go t a place named Kaldor's. There is a Whiphid named T'Krul and he will set you up until my associate comes to collect you."

"Okay, find a Whiphid named T'Krul at a place called Kaldor's in the Off-Worlder sector. "What do I tell him?"

"I'll call him once we are done here so he'll be expecting you." Dain said. "My associate will be along shortly, maybe tomorrow afternoon by the latest."

"Thank you Dain." Talisa couldn't keep the gratitude out of her voice.

"You just hang in there, I'll be seeing you soon."

The call ended and Talisa snapped into action. She grabbed the weapons cache, deactivated the illumination panels and exited the apartment. Talisa returned to the speeder she had parked a block up from the safehouse and accessed the holonet to begin searching for Kaldor's. Talisa just hoped that Dain's associate was as good as he was. Her life and the life of her unborn child depended on it.

**ODS HEADQUARTERS, KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**TWO WEEKS AFTER THE BOMBING OF THE ELITE HOTEL**

Tyran rolled to his feet, came up in a combative stance and feinted a lunge at his attacker. His opponent tried to duck under the feint only to realize too late that it was a bluff and promptly received a solid knee to the midsection. Tyran's powerful blow caused his attacker to double over and Tyran quickly followed through with a snap jab with his right hand, connecting cleanly with his foe's face. Dyir hit the ground in a writhing mass of pain and the bell tone sounded to signal Tyran's victory.

"Technical knockout." Dyir said as he rubbed his jaw and climbed up to his feet.

"No way, that was a knockout!" Vyndra yelled as she climbed down from the bleachers where she, Ijaat, Aru had been watching the sparring match. The young girl had taken to watching Hapan kickboxing matches being broadcast over the holonet. It had been during a rare occasion where everyone had been together at the Numeck apartment watching one such match when the sparring match between himself and Dyir had been conceived. Dyir and Neada had come to watch the holonet event at Vyndra's request and about an hour or so into the event Dyir had stated that he saw nothing special in Hapan kickboxing and that Corellian strike-fighting was far superior.

Neada, an accomplished Hapan kickboxer in her own right, had taken offense to that statement and had challenged Dyir to put his money where his mouth was. He had to take on Tyran, who was well versed in both Corellian strike-fighting and Hapan kickboxing, in a sparring match. The only stipulation was that each man had to stick to one of the two fighting techniques that were being compared in the discussion. Tyran had enthusiastically accepted the challenge and goaded Dyir into accepting it as well.

Now it appeared that the bet was settled and Tyran was more than happy to let the official, Vyndra and Dyir sort out how Tyran had won amongst the three of them. Tyran walked over to he bleachers and Aru began to remove his safety gear. Her grin was as wide as ever as she pulled off his gloves and threw them into the duffel bag and handed him a bottle of water.

"Did you really have to hit him that hard?"

"Dyir's a big boy, he can take it." Tyran laughed. "Besides he wasn't exactly pulling any punches either."

"That was amazing dad!" Ijaat said as he scrambled down off the bleachers and ran over to his parents. "Where did you learn to fight like that?"

It was Tyran's turn to grin as he sat down on one of the bleachers and drank from the water bottle. He was happy that his son was impressed with him but he still couldn't tell Ijaat how he'd learned to fight.

"You know I was in the military before you were born." Tyran said. "That's where I learned how to fight."

"The Mandalorian army?" Ijaat asked.

Tyran spewed water in the direction of the sparring ring and looked at Aru with an accusing glare but Aru also had an equal look of bewilderment on her own face as she stared at Ijaat.

"Why would you say that?" Aru asked as she tried to recover from the shock she was feeling.

"Uncle Rixa's X-Wing had some kind of faded symbol on the nose." Ijaat said. "I remembered seeing that symbol in class when we were learning about Gyndine, it was the symbol of the Mandalorians who liberated the planet."

Tyran cursed.

"Rixa's X-Wing?" Aru said looking at Tyran. "Does he mean Jaya's X-Wing."

Tyran nodded his head slowly. "Jaya was flying the Aggressor and Rixa was stuck with the X-Wing."

"I did a search on the two of you and the Mandalorians and I found out some things." Ijaat continued on, proud of the lengths he'd gone to in order to gather the information. "You were both fought on Ord Mantell, Gyndine, Tholatin and who knows how many more places against the Yuuzhan Vong. We're Mandalorians aren't we?" His voice held no small degree of excitement.

"No." Tyran said sharply. "Me and your mother used to be Mandalorians. You were born on Kuat and are a Kuati citizen. How did he find all this out?!"

Aru shrugged helplessly. "We have restrictions on all of the holonet terminals, he shouldn't have been able to access anything about the Mandalorians."

Tyran turned towards Ijaat slowly and fixed him with his best intimidating stare, it worked on full grown assassins so it shouldn't have taken long for an eleven year old to fold under the gaze. "Ijaat how did you get that information?"

"I sliced into the terminals using your passwords and access codes." Ijaat said. A defiant look worked itself onto his face and it worried Tyran in no small measure. "It wasn't really all that difficult."

Tyran looked at Aru and sighed in frustration.

"I'm impressed by you slicing skills but you realize you're in a freighter load of trouble right?"

Ijaat scowled. "Why?"

"Why?" Tyran repeated incredulously. "You sliced into the holonet terminals and looked at something you weren't ever supposed to see."

Dyir and Vyndra came to a stop just short of the bleachers. "Are we interrupting something?" He asked.

"No we're all done here for now." Tyran said giving his son a look that suggested quite the opposite. Tyran's commlink began to buzz in the duffel bag and he dropped down onto the bench and grabbed it. "Aru take the kids home will you, I'll be along in a few minutes."

Aru grabbed her son gently by the shoulders and steered him towards the exit after motioning to Vyndra to follow.

Dyir watched them carefully as they disappeared out of the training room and then looked down at Tyran.

"What did I miss?"

Tyran growled. "Ijaat knows we're Mandalorians."

Dyir raised his eyebrows. "How did that happen?"

"The kid is too damn smart for his own good." Tyran sighed.

"Not a trait I think he inherited from you." Dyir said. "It was bound to happen eventually."

Tyran scowled at Dyir and answered his still vibrating commlink. "What?"

"I know you don't exactly care for me, but you know you could take some of the hostility out of your voice." Dain Dolvo said.

Tyran sighed heavily. "Every time I answer this damn thing there is someone on the other end who I really don't want to talk to. Let me guess, you want something from me right?"

"I know you don't owe me any favors or anything but yes there is something I need your help with." Dain said. "I need you to go to Kaldor's in the Off-Worlder sector and collect a woman for me. Can you keep her safe until I can get to Kuat and get her out of there?"

"Is she some kind of bounty?" Tyran said.

"No, she's some woman I met at the rest station over Gyndine. To make a long story short she's pregnant with my child and just found out about it. Apparently she's got a group of Hapans after her now."

"Hapans?" Tyran perked up at the word. "Why would Hapans be after her?"

"Because she was one of them until she went rogue when she found out she was pregnant." Dain said. "That's all that I know."

"Do you know what she was doing on Kuat in the fist place?" Tyran inquired even though he suspected he knew the answer.

"I just know that she was there to take out someone, don't know who." Dain said. "Does it matter?"

"Yes, me an Dyir are protecting a former Hapan commando who was betrayed by her commanding officer a while back. Your girlfriend might very well be the member of an assassination team sent to kill her."

Dain was silent for a second. "Look can you just hold on to her until I can come and get her."

"Oh yeah you'd better believe I'm going to go get her and we're going to have a long chat about her Hapan friends." Tyran said. "If she answers my questions then I'll provide her with protection."

"And if she won't?"

"If she's truly pregnant and being hunted by her friends she should have no problem talking." Tyran said. "You said Kaldor's right?"

"Yes I did." Dain said. "I'll be in-system either tomorrow or the day after. If anything happens to her Tyran I'm going to hold you responsible for it."

"What if she's dead when we go get her?"

"She won't be. I have T'Krul standing guard over her room." Dain said. "Just go get her and make sure she's safe until I arrive."

"Why can't she just catch a ride on a freighter heading out of the system?"

"She says there's a whole Hapan network ingrained into Kuat at some of it's high levels. Supposedly the Hapans would be all over her before any ship she got on could complete it's preflight checklist."

"Well me and her are going to have quite a list of things to discuss then. Her name?"

"Talisa Raldi." Dain said. "Give me your word that she'll be safe."

"Yeah I'm good at protecting people from Hapans, she'll be in one piece when you get here." Tyran said and ended the call. He looked up at Dyir and laughed incredulously. "You aren't going to believe this."

**OFF-WORLDER SECTOR, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**TWO WEEKS AFTER THE BOMBING OF THE ELITE HOTEL**

Talisa had sat just up the block from the less the reputable looking establishment and had spent an hour or so scoping it out to make sure she hadn't been tailed. She had stopped and bought some new clothes that were more fashionable in the Off-Worlder sector, a pair of form fitting dark-gray utility pants and a purple durafab sweatshirt. She'd even taken the precaution of cutting her hair to a much shorter length. Her hands were shoved deep in the pocket on the front of the sweatshirt, gripping the holdout blaster she had taken from the safehouse. The hood was pulled up to hide her face as well as to shield her from the light mist that had started to fall in the last few minutes.

She didn't see anything suspicious, or at least not anything abnormally suspicious. There were plenty of the seedy types who were regularly found in places like this one loitering around the building's exterior. Everyone was careful to not observe everyone else and made sure to keep their to their own business and that suited her just fine. She contemplated waiting a few more minutes but as the weather deteriorated she decided to enter the cantina and find the Whiphid that Dain had told her to contact.

The interior of Kaldor's was dark and grimy but Talisa could make out a group of Givin, Chevs, Duros and Klatooinians sitting around talking in low tones. None of them so much as gave her a second glance as she crossed the room and walked to the bar. An old Gotal was serving drinks to an Aqualish and two Twi'leks. Talisa wrapped her knuckles on the bar top to get his attention.

"I'm looking for T'Krul." She said.

The Gotal stared at her for a long second and then produced a swipecard and slid it over to her. "Third floor, room forty-four. Take the turbolifts on your left. You're late."

Talisa scowled at the Gotal and grabbed the card. She hadn't been told that she had needed to arrive at a certain time and she wasn't about to just walk into a building filled with lowlife without scoping it out first. She headed out in the direction the Gotal had indicated and entered the turbolifts. Thankfully the turbolift she had entered was empty and she could take a few moments to calm herself. Her stomach was acting up again and she was fighting the urge to vomit with every ounce of her willpower. The turbolift came to a stop and she stepped out of it into a dank hallway that smelled of mildew and rotted out vegetables. It didn't help the situation with her stomach.

She found a flower pot and kneeled over it and dispensed the contents of her stomach into the soil. She repeated the process twice more, sweating and swearing as she wiped her forehead on the sleeve of her sweater.

"I'm sure that plant appreciated that." A deep voice echoed from behind her.

Talisa glanced over her shoulder and felt a pang of fear, the kind that was a natural reflex. Behind her was a tall, well muscled mass of fur and tusks. A pair of beady black eyes peered down at her from behind an elongated snout. The harnesses on his hips were holding two large, high-powered Imperial-era blasters, but Talisa was more weary of the claws that protruded from the tips of the Whiphid's three fingered hands.

"Are you T'Krul?" She said as she wondered if her blaster would be able to penetrate the Whiphid's thick muscles if she had to shoot him.

"Yes, I expected a little more from you somehow." T'Krul said as he crossed his arms and gave her an appraising glance. "Dain said you were pretty sharp, but I found you vomiting into a flower pot."

"Better than the hallway." She said as she rose to her feet.

"It might have improved the smell though." T'Krul countered.

"Dain said you'd set me up somewhere safe."

The Whiphid huffed and turned towards the opposite end of the hallway and walked off. Talisa followed him wearily still not sure whether she could trust the Whiphid. He was Dain's contact, not hers, and the Hapans had quite a budget to spend to bribe anyone they needed to in order to get their target. Neldri's commlink had been buzzing on and off for the last few hours. Talisa had removed the tracking device from the commlink, as well as the one in her own commlink, so she wasn't worried about being traced to Kaldor's that way at least. Her time window was shrinking rapidly now though, Aenica and Dalrial would be wondering where she and Neldri had gone to.

It wouldn't be long before they went to the medcenter and it wouldn't be much longer before they picked up whatever strands of her trail she hadn't tied up, and she'd covered her tracks well. T'Krul opened up room forty-four with his own swipecard and stepped aside to let her in.

"It isn't the Skyview but you'll be safe here. Dain has paid me to stand guard outside for as long as you are here. There are clothes and supplies in the room, even a few weapons and a set of body armor I managed to scrounge up for you. If you need anything else you can use this commlink to contact me and I'll have someone get it for you."

Talisa walked into the room and walked in an exploratory circle. It was dark and smelled just minutely better than the hallway outside.

"Do you know when Dain's other contact is supposed to be here?" She asked. "Will it be in a day like Dain said?"

T'Krul shook his head. "I don't know, but I will be alerted when the contact arrives to take you somewhere else."

"Where are the weapons?" Talisa asked.

"Under the bed in a bag."

Talisa glanced into the bedroom and then back at T'Krul. "Thank you."

T'Krul gave a nod of his shaggy haired head and then stepped outside and closed the door to the room. Talisa walked into the bedroom and grabbed the bag that contained the weapons her temporary bodyguard had procured for her. Inside there was an E-11 blaster rifle, two WESTAR heavy blasters, enough power packs to reload each weapon a hundred times over and a set of standard issue Galactic Alliance Void Jumper armor. The Whiphid had outdone himself, he had provided far better supplies than the Hapans did.

Now all that she could do was sit and wait for the contact to come and get her and hope that T'Krul was as good at being a bodyguard as he was at procuring weapons. She didn't think that Dain would hire a substandard mercenary to protect her and must have had some working relationship with T'Krul if he had enough confidence in the Whiphid to ask him to protect the woman carrying his child. Just thinking about Dain seemed to settle her stomach as she sat on the bed and fell backwards into the lone and rather flat pillow.

So far he had taken care of her and she had no doubts at all about him being able to get her off the planet in one piece. Dain didn't seem like a man who was prone to failure.


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN**

**OFF-WORLDER SECTOR, KUAT CITY, KUAT, 40 ABY**

**TWO WEEKS AFTER THE BOMBING OF THE ELITE HOTEL**

"Does it feel weird being back in this armor or is it just me?" Tyran asked Dyir over the privacy of their insulated helmet comms.

"No, after a decade of wearing expensive suits I agree that wearing _beskar'gam_ is...strange." Dyir agreed. "But it's worth it. If this woman we're going after really is part of a Hapan assassin team she probably knows who we are and might have attacked us if we just rolled up in our standard gear."

"Ten years ago this was our standard gear." Tyran said ruefully.

Dyir grunted and brought their landspeeder deeper into the Off-Worlder sector. The third occupant of the landspeeder the two Mandalorians were occupying was oblivious to the conversation. He was a lieutenant in the Kuati military named Whyl Kest. He was a new recruit into the ODS Threat Reduction Team as a medic and the only reason he was with Tyran and Dyir now was to confirm that Talisa Raldi was indeed pregnant.

If it turned out that she wasn't then there would be no harm no foul, at least on Dain's part anyway. He had probably been paid to ask Tyran for help to get Talisa closer to Neada. Tyran wasn't going to go after Dain for just doing what he was good at. He wouldn't be as forgiving when it came to Talisa though. If she was lying things would take a turn towards the spectacularly violent. Tyran wasn't a fan of the practice but when it came to getting information through 'strategic pain distribution', as Dyir called it, Tyran had no problem taking that path.

Talisa Raldi would be the first female Hapan that Tyran had dealt with other than Neada Tash. Every previous hit team he had battled had been nothing more than male assassins. He wasn't looking forward to torturing her if she wouldn't give him the information he needed. It didn't feel honorable, but then again honor had never really been Tyran's lifelong goal.

Come to think of it he realized he'd never really had one. He had been baptized in fire during the Yuuzhan Vong war and hadn't really operated as a bounty hunter and general mercenary for very long before taking the KDY job.

He'd never really had the time to think about what he'd wanted to do with his life. It had always been liberate this planet, rescue that Jedi, liberate another planet, capture a swindling arms dealer and deliver him to the Hutt he had cheated, defeat Hapan assassin squad after Hapan assassin squad. The closest he felt he came to having a lifelong goal was to make sure Ijaat never became a soldier like him and now even that seemingly simple goal was in serious jeopardy. His ten year old son knew about his Mandalorian heritage and that frightened Tyran on every level.

Dyir turned his head slightly and nudged Tyran with his elbow. "You still thinking about Ijaat?"

Tyran grunted, Dyir always seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. "Yeah. Years of hard work and careful planning were just undone by that kid's damn brains. He's too damn smart for his own good Dyir."

"To be fair you did make him that way." Dyir laughed.

"How so?"

"You made sure Ijaat was able to have the best education available on Kuat. He's been to nothing but the best schools, had the best tutor droids credits can buy and plus you and Aru aren't exactly idiots to begin with." Dyir laughed. "Your plan to make sure he didn't find out he was a Mandalorian is kind of responsible for him finding out that he is a Mandalorian."

"You know what, I'm just going to ignore you." Tyran said sourly and Dyir's amused laughter rolled through his helmet.

Tyran turned his attention to Whyl Kest thinking that would push the problems he was having keeping his heritage separate from his son out of his mind for the moment.

"Lieutenant did you read the briefing packet on Talisa Raldi?" He asked.

The young lieutenant looked up from the back seat. "Yes sir, Talisa Raldi is a senior operative of the Seven-Nine-One Special Actions Unit, also known as the War Dragons. Seven-Nine-One is the tier-one SpecOps unit in the Hapan Military and is exclusively made up of females."

"How does Seven-Nine-One relate to Oh-Dee-Es and the Threat Reduction Team?" Dyir asked.

"Seven-Nine-One was once under the command of Neada Tash until her treason the year prior to the Yuuzhan Vong Invasion." Kest said. He glanced from one Mandalorian to the other. "Are you two done trying to see if I'm some green rookie who's going to get you blown to bits? I've got ten years in the Kuati Commandos so I've already been through this hazing poodoo."

Dyir laughed and nodded to Tyran. "I think he's going to fit right in on the Threat Reduction Team."

"I agree, I'm already starting to like him more than I like you."

"Oh you've just gotten used to me is all." Dyir said as he brought the speeder to a stop a block away from Kaldor's. "Alright Lieutenant, when we get to her room you need to stay out of sight. Make sure you've got that jacket on before you get out, Talisa won't like seeing a Kuati military uniform and things could get out of hand."

"Once we get inside and get her subdued then you can come in and take the blood sample and I'll offer her Neada's deal." Tyran said as he climbed out of the speeder.

"If she refuses the deal?" The medic asked.

"We make her talk, whether Dain likes it or not." Tyran said darkly.

"You're the boss." Kest said as he followed them down the pedwalk.

They fell into line almost instantly, Tyran at the front clearing a path through the pedestrian traffic with his large size and intimidating abyssal-black armor. Kest was walking behind him in the traditional place of a VIP, which in a sense he really was, as well as being the least armored member of the team. Dyir was on his heels, constantly eyeballing people as they moved passed him making sure to keep them in his sights with his HUDs 360 degree wraparound view.

No one appeared to be following them and that meant one of two things: Either no one was following them or the people following them were very good at remaining hidden. Dyir was trained to notice people who were good at remaining hidden and since he didn't see any threats or any potential threats, he was sure there were no Hapans following Tyran, Kest and himself to the location of the wayward Hapan commando.

It amazed Dyir that for the ten years he had been working to protect Neada Tash that the Hapans had been busy building, apparently very well connected, networks of operatives in the social structure of Kuat itself just to keep tabs on her. It made him wonder how many times he and Tyran had escorted Neada to a State diner and had conversations with some politician or another department head who had seemed very interested in the goings-on of Neada Tash.

How many of them had simply been competitors and how many had been entrenched Hapans sniffing out a weak point in their target's defenses? He knew the question was rolling around inside Tyran's head just as often as it was his own. They were both already trying to mentally compile new friend-foe lists even though they couldn't accurately do that until they got what they wanted from Talisa Raldi.

Hundreds of names came and went as Dyir compiled and re-compiled his mental list of potential enemies again and again. A name would be listed under the category of hostile one moment and then promptly switched to friendly in the next. The whole exercise was pointless though and would only serve to drive him mad the longer he concentrated on it. Dyir couldn't help but wonder how Tyran managed to seem so level headed about the subject, as head of Neada's security he should have been fretting over it far more than he actually was.

Maybe Tyran was so calm because he knew that one way or another he was going to get the information he needed to rectify the problem in just a few minutes. Hopefully all went well and no one got hurt. Tyran's indifferent attitude towards Dain Dolvo's wrath should something happen to Talisa was something that Dyir didn't share. Dain Dolvo was not someone you wanted to cross, the lengths he would go to in order to get revenge were potentially boundless. Dyir wouldn't ever admit it out but he severely doubted that he could handle Dolvo in a physical altercation, he even doubted that Tyran would have been able to beat him outright.

No, if Tyran and Dain ever fought each other it would be a bloody and destructive battle that would only end once one of them, possibly even both of them, were lying dead on the ground. The contest between the last of the Numecks and the last of the Dolvos would be a war that would have made even the mighty Yuuzhan Vong cringe at the violence the two men would wrought upon one another.

Dyir's jaw still hurt from the force of the simple jab Tyran had hit him with in their sparring session earlier. He had to wonder how much pain he would have been in if Tyran had really put everything into the jab. Tyran had clearly used the weeks of vacation time that Neada had given him to build up his strength, and he had already been just as strong as a savage rancor.

Tyran Numeck was another man you didn't want to cross. Two Aqualish made the same conclusion and parted for Tyran and his company of two as they walked through the entryway of Kaldor's. Tyran nodded at the Gotal behind the bar who then jerked his head at the staircase next to him. Tyran gave another subtle nod and proceeded in that direction, his hand hovering ever so slightly near the holster of one of his DL44 heavy-blasters. Dyir had always preferred Merr-Sonn weaponry over BlasTech and carried a Model 434 blaster pistol. His hand was visibly clamped on the grip of his pistol.

The trio made their way up the staircase and it was at this point when Dyir moved up directly behind Tyran.

"Fourth floor, room forty-four." Tyran said.

"Or we just have to keep going until we find the room with a big Whiphid standing guard outside." Dyir said. "Why is it always Whiphids?"

"Do you have a problem with Whiphids?" Kest asked.

"As a matter of fact I do." Dyir said.

"What would you prefer Dyir?" Tyran said as they continued up past the first floor landing. "Enlighten us."

"How about a Jawa or maybe even a Dug. Something small that I can easily kick a great distance."

Tyran laughed darkly. "Personally I think Dugs are more dangerous than Whiphids, they're smarter and have impeccable memories. It is why they can hold a grudge for so long."

"Speaking from experience?" Kest said.

"Once you've lived for a certain amount of years and have done as much traveling as I have you get to know certain species and their customs, both good and bad." Tyran said. "T'Krul isn't all that bad though. He's certainly better than most of the Whiphids I've come across."

They passed the next two landings in silence, passing only a lone Quarren as they made their way to the fourth floor.

Talisa had been busy in the first few hours since arriving at her temporary safehouse deep within the Off-Worlder sector. She had removed all of the weapons from the bag T'Krul had left her with and had dawned the Void Jumper armor he had provided. For a single instant she entertained the idea of pulling her civilian clothing over the military-grade body armor but ultimately decided that it was too bulky to be able to effectively hide under the sweatshirt and pants. She had attached the two WESTAR heavy blasters to the magnetic thigh plates of the body armor. She had tucked her small hold out blaster away in her right boot and was now sitting on the corner of the bed with the E-11 blaster rifle in her lap, staring at the main door to the room.

It was all she could do now. She just had to sit and wait until the person Dain had called came to get her and whisk her off to another supposedly safe location. Talisa guessed that it would be much the same routine once Dain got her off Kuat. She doubted very much that he would stick with her for very long, he was probably already departing from a job to come and get her. Bounty hunting was a first-come-first-serve business and she understood that he couldn't babysit her for an extended amount of time, at least until he completed whatever contracts he had already struck.

She had finally realized just how little she really knew about Dain Dolvo and wondered if he would feel compelled to marry her because she was carrying his child. Marriage was something that Talisa hadn't ever contemplated for herself, like most Hapan women she viewed men as breeding stock and nothing more. She had only planned on picking a suitable mate to give her a child once she had worked her way up the ladder in the Hapan military quite some time from now, but never had she thought about having a husband.

The thought of being bound to one man for the rest of her life was an intriguing one and made her think of all the possible outcomes of that. Then there was the fact that Dain was a Mandalorian and Mandalorian society was well known for the practice of adopting all comers into it with welcoming arms. She wasn't exactly sure that being a Mandalorian was something that would suit her, despite the combat oriented lifestyle.

She couldn't take just sitting and waiting anymore and got up from the bed and walked over to the door. She looked out the viewer next to the palm scanner to see what was going on outside. T'Krul's shaggy haired back dominated most of the view but she could tell from the way he was standing that he was looking to his left. A sudden mix of fear and apprehension rolled through her and she couldn't help but think that the Hapans had found her. That was most likely not the case though, it could have just been someone else heading to their room taking note of the large Whiphid standing out in the hallway.

Even in Kuat's dingy Out-Worlder sector, Whiphids weren't an all too common sight.

Talisa took in a calming breath that did little to actually calm her. T'Krul turned his whole body to the left and gripped one of his high powered blasters and gestured to the figures that she couldn't see yet. She realized her hand was gripping the handle of one of the WESTAR blasters on her thighs. Talisa turned back to the room and looked for the best defendable location she could find and to her dismay the best cover in the room was simply the other side of the bed.

Talisa half walked and half sprinted her way to the opposite side of the bed and squatted down behind it and trained the E-11 on the door. If it opened before T'Krul called her to let her know that her ride had arrived then she was going to open fire. Her breathing deepened as she settled her trigger finger just inside the E-11s trigger guard, resting it just behind the trigger itself. Her heartbeat was audible in her ears as she gently cocked her head and positioned the doorway in the sights of the modern variant of the classic Imperial blaster rifle and waited.

Two seconds. Six seconds. Ten seconds. Her commlink began to buzz gently in the compartment on her belt. Talisa activated the wireless receiver in her ear but never removed her gaze from the door.

"Go," She said quietly.

"Dain's contacts are here," the deep gravelly voice that belonged to T'Krul said back. "My job is done. The Mandalorians will take things from here."

"Thank you for the information T'Krul, and thanks again for all the supplies and help you have provided me with."

The Whiphid gave a huff of acknowledgment and ended the call. Talisa stood up from behind the bed and attached the E-11 to the magnetic back plate of her armor. She made sure to remove the safeties on both her WESTAR blasters, just in case the Mandalorians outside her door weren't the dependable sort like Dain. The door slid open and two of the largest men Talisa had ever seen entered the room.

They weren't large in the traditional sense of height, though they did both easily break two meters, but in the muscular sense. One of them was wearing royal blue armor and the other a shade of deep and intimidating black. It was easy for her Hapan eyes to make out the defined form of rock hard muscle hidden away behind layers of armor and flightsuits. A third and significantly smaller man dressed in simple black combat fatigues and a utility jacket followed them in discreetly, almost too discreetly. Her eyes must have given away her suspicions because the blue armored Mandalorian looked subtly over his shoulder at the smaller man and back at her.

"Don't mind him ma'am, he's just a medic."

Talisa fixed the man with a dark glare. "Do I look like I need a medic."

"You might if you keep up with that attitude." the black armored Mandalorian said as he took a few steps into the room and gave, what Talisa assumed to be, an appraising glance. "So you're carrying a little baby Dolvo are you?"

Talisa turned her suspicious gaze on the black armored Mandalorian.

"I don't really see how that's any of your concern."

"It's not, but I have to say I'm not fond of the idea of their being more than one Dolvo in the galaxy at any one time."

"Why is that?"

The Mandalorian gave a shrug. "Old family feud."

Talisa stared at him for a few minutes. "Yes I am pregnant with the child of Dain Dolvo, the two of us met on a rest station of Gyndine and there were some unexpected results. My name is Talisa Raldi, I didn't catch your names."

The two Mandalorians turned their helmeted heads towards each other for a few moments and must have traded a few words.

"We'll give you are names in a few seconds but we need to get some things out of the way first." the blue armored one said motioning to the smaller man. "The doc here is going to take a blood sample and run a quick test on it to see if you really are pregnant and you're going to let him do it."

"Why? I already told you I was pregnant."

"This is the deal." the black armored Mandalorian interjected. "Either you do what we say or take your chances on the street with the Hapans. What's it going to be?"

Talisa didn't know what to say. "Dain won't be happy when I tell him that you two left me to fend for myself."

"Do I look like I'm afraid of Dain Dolvo?" the black armored Mandalorian snorted.

In all honesty Talisa had a hard time thinking of anything that could possibly have frightened a man as big as him. She didn't know how to respond to being talked back at like that by a man. She was used to her men being quite and compliant, not smug and confrontational.

"Do what we ask and you won't have to worry about the Hapans, we'll hide you away for a day or two and then when Dain gets here he can get you offworld." the blue one said in a more diplomatic tone than the one his counterpart was using.

"Give me your names and show me your faces." Talisa said. "Do that and I'll submit to your blood test."

Another moment of silence passed as the two Mandalorians conferred with their private comms and then the black armored one turned his head back towards Talisa and nodded. They both reached up in unison and undid their helmet seals before removing their helmets. Talisa's eyes widened as she took in the face of the blue armored Mandalorian and then the black armored one.

_Dyir Carud and Tyran Numeck!_

Her hands went to the handles of her WESTAR blasters instantly but Tyran and Dyir already had their blasters trained on her.

"I guess she already knows our names." Dyir said.

"Must have if she went for her guns." Tyran said. "You're pretty fast on the draw...but not fast enough."

Talisa met his smirk with a dark scowl which turned into a look of bewilderment as both Mandalorians lowered and reholstered their pistols.

"We aren't here to kill you, in fact we heard that you know something about a large Hapan network operating here on Kuat." Dyir said.

"We're very interested as to who may be apart of that network and you're going to gives us that information."

Talisa snorted. "What makes you think I would do that?"

"We'll get to that in a minute but the doc has some work to do first." Dyir waved the smaller man in the utility jacket through.

The man pulled out a small hypo and a small gray box with an injector port.

"Hold still ma'am." He said as he removed sections of armor from her left arm and began to take a blood sample.

"It took almost two hours for the medcenter to confirm I was pregnant." Talisa said. "Are we going to sit here and wait for that little box to tell me something I already know the answer to?"

Tyran sighed. "Well for starters we have better gadgets than the medcenter believe it or not, and we won't be here a moment longer than we need to."

**MALASTARE, 40 ABY**

**EIGHT DAYS AFTER THE BOMBING OF THE ELITE HOTEL**

"I don't care who you have to bribe, shoot or kill but you are going to get me access through that damned security flotilla orbiting Kuat!" Dain raged into the privacy of his helmet commlink.

"What is so important on Kuat that can't wait until you complete the assignment you were given?" Iman Vitrix replied coolly. "I have already paid you eight thousand credits to eliminate a senior member of the Galactic Alliance Scientific Military Research Department and I expect results."

Dain growled in disgust. There was no way he was going to reveal to Iman Vitrix that there was a woman on Kuat carrying his child, giving him that information would be worse than dangerous.

"Your scientist is on Malastare and isn't going anywhere for the next eight months. My personal problems on Kuat will be settled way before then so just get me my clearance and I will wave the second payment of my fee."

"Damn it Dain this is important."

"Don't talk to me about important!" Dain roared. "Either get me my clearance through the flotilla or I'll just wind up blasting my way through, it makes little difference to me."

Vitrix was silent for a moment. It wasn't a stunned silence or an enraged silence, but the kind that was usually brought on when a cold and calculating mind was formulating something sinister.

"I will get you your clearance on one condition." Vitrix said at last.

"And that is?"

"I have just opened up a new detention facility in the Outer Rim, it's a facility where we can get information on our enemies without the impeding procedures and bothersome interference of the Jedi. I need someone I can trust to run it and I want that person to be you."

"Where is it and for how long will I be there?"

"Well I'll need you there in a few weeks, Colonel Solo has been rounding up Corellians all week and a few of them are going to wind up being part of the inaugural group for my facility. It is in the far reaches of the Outer Rim where no one would ever think to look, I would prefer you to be the initial warden for a year or two to make sure things run smoothly. I realize how much of an inconvenience this will be and I am prepared to pay you handsomely for your time."

"Two years in the Outer Rim as the warden of a torture facility." Dain summed up. "I want fifty-thousand for the first year and a hundred for the second."

"I'm sure that can be managed. I will see to it that you get your clearance into the Kuat system."

Dain ended the call without saying another word and continued towards the spaceport and his newly acquired TIE/IN Interceptor. He had traded his old Gladiator for a top of the line new model. He'd always been fond of the look of the Imperial TIE Interceptor, slick, lethal and beautiful all at once.

With all the money Vitrix was throwing at him and the scrap value of the Gladiator he had finally been able to get one of his own. His was different than the standard issue Interceptor though, his came complete with shielding, a hyperdrive and upgraded armor plating. The additional armor had sacrificed some of the ships legendary speed, but it was still fast enough to outrun most starfighters.

As he climbed up into his new ship he couldn't help but think about the heavy weight that had recently settled upon his shoulders: he was going to be a father.

Dain had come to terms long ago with being the last of the Dolvo clan but now that didn't seem like it was going to be the case. He wondered if Talisa was going to want to get married and settle down somewhere. She hadn't struck him as the type of woman who wanted to settle down though and he himself had never really put much thought into having a wife, let alone a Hapan wife.

That seemed liked asking for trouble.

Hapan women were used to walking over their men and Dain wasn't about to be someone floormat. But still though he knew that marriage was a discussion he and Talisa were going to have to have once he got to Kuat. He caught himself smiling as he started to warm up the drives as thoughts about having a son wandered on into the forefront of his mind.

He wouldn't have minded having a daughter either, either one was fine with him. He laughed ruefully to himself as he thought about the look on Tyran's face when he had heard that there was going to be another Dolvo lurking in the shadows of the galaxy to continue on the Cold War between the Numecks and the Dolvos. He laughed harder still when he thought about the possibility of having twins.

He was glad Tyran had agreed to help him out. Dain chose to ignore the fact that Tyran was helping him because Talisa had access to information that he and Dyir needed to put a stop to the threat the Hapans posed to their employer. Dain couldn't hold it against them, he would have done the same in their position, but he still liked to think that the decision was a large turning point in their relationship. A turning point for he better.

As long as Tyran didn't discover that Dain was actively tracking his younger brother Rixa, he was sure things would remain somewhat cordial between them. After all you had to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.


End file.
